Saturday, September 12, 2015

Do it better



Barclay's Bank needs my password to check a problem with my account. The only problem, I don't have an account with them. Another email scam.

I've had so many banks send me these messages. If I had accounts in all of them, I would be rich. If I had accounts in all of them, I would have to provide them with my Certificate of Loss of Nationality because if I were American still, they wouldn't want anything to do with me.

I did almost fall for an EDF (French electricity) scam which said my bank hadn't paid my RIB (automatic payment). I checked with my bank. Of course, they had paid it. They took it from there and warned their other customers.

And there was my friend  who I worked with at the IEC in Geneva. She was in Wales, the email said and her pocketbook was stolen, could I send her some money.

I got two cups of teas and took them to the next office. "I'm sorry your Welsh holiday was ruined by the theft."

She looked up puzzled.

I handed her a print out.

What happened was that her email list had been hacked. We both knew her friends would never believe that she wrote any message with that many grammatical and spelling errors.

Rick has pointed out that even when scammers come up with great websites to fool a trusting person, they often are so badly written that they become unbelievable. On the other hand it must work because they keep on trying and it is trying. Very!