No Ponderosa Here
Here’s the best one yet. Simple. Straightforward. Good use of words. Great use of firmly ingrained Western connotation. In the message itself, there’s nothing at all to make the unsuspecting wary. So how can I be so sure this is a fake email?
A few things stand out, if you slow down and pay attention. Firstly, it’s unsolicited email from a sender who’s name appears also in the subject line. The sender is obviously not a person, with a name like that. And look at the address. That is not me. I may be one of the 12 people on earth who still doesn’t have a gmail or msn account. (I use Thunderbird.)
Now look at the body of the message. Great use of the language? Nothing wrong with the words, I guess. Except they’re all caps, and no space after the colon. And the overuse of exclamation marks would certainly fit better on MySpace than in my email. So yeah, I guess the words are okay, for a 12 year old girl on MySpace.
Now, let’s look at the point of the email. What’s it asking us to do? No requests for personal info there. No clandestine attempts at taking some poor dead man’s millions. And, importantly, no Yahoo! email address to respond to. All we’re asked to do is open a ‘lil old attachment.
Yep, that’s all. Just a Word file, named “Happy Bonanza…362-2331″. Wonder what’s in there? Here is some of it, as shown in Notepad:
From: Microsoft Award Team
South African 2010 World Cup Bid lottery Award
Lottery Headquarters: 31, Brixon
Court Carlton East GateCongratulation your name have therefore been short-listed to claim a total sum of US$900,000.00 (Nine Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only) in cash credited to file KPC/9030108308/03.This is from a total cash prize of (US$200,900,000) Two Hundred Million Nine Hundred United States Dollars, shared amongst the first One Hundred (100) lucky winners in this category world-wide (Batch No: 13/26/DC36 Ref No: EAASL/931OYI/03 Serial No:97560)
To file for your claim, please contact our PAYMENT AGENT/DELIVERY AGENCY as soon as you read this message for urgent release of your fund , his contact information is as follows:-
Name: MR.KEVIN MOSALA
Email Add :(kevinmosala@yahoo.com)
Tel: + 27-83-362-2331
KINDLY PROVIDE BELOW THIS INFO FOR THE PROCESSING OF YOUR WINNING FUND!!!!
1. Your Full Name.
2. Address:
3. Marital Status:
4. Age:
5. Sex:
6. Nationality/Country of Origin
7. Amount Won
8. Telephone Number:
9. Fax Number:
10.File No/Ref No/Batch No/serial No
11.Your driver’s license or international passport sent by attachment.
12.Your Occupation/ProfessionYours in Service,
Mr. Kevin Mosala.
(I opened it in Notepad, because Notepad has no access to the deeper parts of Windows, and if there was any malicious script in the attachment, Notepad wouldn’t be able to run it. Word, on the other hand, possibly could. If they can get into your pc, it won’t matter whether you respond or not.)
So at last we find that this is just another 419 scam email. To be certain, it’s a good one, and I am sure it will fool alot of people. The key to this one is the oldest rule in consumer emails:
Do Not Click The Attachment!
Instead, try clicking the “Delete” button. Your day will go much better.
.
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I am Jon. G’day!