On 2011-07-24, Harold & Susan Vordos wrote:

"Ignoramus29885" wrote in message
...
snip----

The scammer will send you a bad check ni the amount more than your
asking price, and will demand that you send the difference to a
"shipper" via Western Union. The "shipper" is the scammer himself. The
scammer could not care less about what you are actually selling.

i
That's pretty obvious to me, considering there was never a mention of the
merchandise, which was spoken of in general terms. A *one size fits all*
scam letter.

Speaking of scams, I've recently gotten two attempts to get me
to share the costs of a gift to someone (who I don't know at all), with
the gift being an "electric cigarette" in both cases.

It is actually addressed specifically to me, and has my first
name in the Subject: line.

Obviously an example of what is called "spear phishing" ("spear"
because it is directed to an individual, with references which are
supposed to make it seem to be from someone who knows me, or who does
regular business with me, instead of having a large number of addresses
hidden behind a BCC (Blind Carbon Copy), and saying something like
"dearly beloved" or similar in the salutation, getting around needing to
use an individual's name there.

In this one, I am supposed to connect to a web site which is
selling the electric cigarette. I suspect that this tries to get my
credit card -- or tries to dig passwords and the like out of my
computer. (Not likely to work, since I don't use Windows anyway.) But
there is no way that I will actually connect to that URL anyway. I did
look up the most recent one, and it is located in Norway.

I guess that they are assuming that I am a businessman who is
likely to give frequent gifts to people I barely know to maintain
business connections.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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