talkmagic.co.uk

Just for everyones info, this is another con ...they're getting better!

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My Name is Dr Rolland.Smith,

I am looking for an experienced wedding planner who will handle my wedding and arrange dinner for a group of people who will be attending the wedding ceremony.Seven will arrive few days before the wedding day.

The wedding is expected to hold on the 18th July,2009 and 25 to 30 guests are expected to attend.As i do not know what the guests might choose for their meals and drinks, i will make a prepayment as initial deposit for this booking via credit card once availability is confirmed by you.All checks and balances will be made with you on 16th July which is the final day of the booking, You are to arrange for a Videography,Music intertainment,Photography,Officiant/Priest & Church,cake,flowers and hall.If there is any these items that is beyond your capability,you let us know so that another company can handle it. Get back to me with your response

as we don't have much time with us so that we can process our accommodation within the region more convenient for you and us.

Best Regards,

Dr Rolland.Smith,

14 Elizabeth Street,
Victoria London,
London, SW1W 9RB

+4470359 82872

---- Nuova grafica e nuove funzionalità! Crea subito Gratis la tua nuova Casella di Posta Katamail

Dr Rolland.Smith wrote:Get back to me with your response

If I could be bovvered to respond, it would involve sex and travel...

Mandrake wrote:

Dr Rolland.Smith wrote:Get back to me with your response

If I could be bovvered to respond, it would involve sex and travel...

You want to go on a dirty weekend with him?

Ooops, rumbled again.....

It seems incredible that anyone would fall for email scams, but I was talking to a perfectly intelligent bloke at a party last bank holiday who had just fallen for a phishing scam. The way he was talking, he was he first to ever fall for it.

I'm surprised people still fall for phishing scams, it had pretty high media converage. Reminds me of the 491 scams, it boggles the mind how people could have ever fallen for them!

Ok Tomo I would have guessed that you would not be amazed at why these things still work .

However they do still work and they are insanely popular. They are anonymous so the risk of getting caught is near zero.

There is little investment once you have the basic patter worked out you can email it to billions of people for roughly the same cost it required to create it in the first place.

So even if 1 out of 10,000 people fall for it then your still paying for itself by a factor of 10.

People fall for it because of the same reason half of our neat tricks work They are not thinking about what they are about to do they are thinking about what it is going to get them.

If people stopped falling for these things on a regular basis your jobs as entertainers would be drastically harder and my attempts as a beleaguered armature would be impossible.

At least now they for the most part are using proper grammar. The ones that read,

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I am needing to help me send money to the family I have who is disposed with you."

Of course it could just mean that the online free translation sites are improving

Infinite wrote:Ok Tomo I would have guessed that you would not be amazed at why these things still work .

Tee hee. I read all my email in plain text. All the false links are clearly marked!

I nearly fell for one of the earlier versions of this about two years ago. It was the "book a magcian, send him his fee in advance, oh dear the cheques for too much, can you send the balance back?" scams.

To be honest I was a bit desperate for work at the time and an email arrived claiming to be from an entertainment agency. I remember it well because of the odd phrasing. "An enquiry comes in for such-and-such date". It struck me as an odd turn of phrase, but wondered if this was how many entertainment agencies phrased things. They also said the gig was in Bristol for 2 hours and they would pay £250.

Anyway, I was available for the date and emailed back saying I could do the gig if they wanted to confirm the booking. All along my spider sense was tingling like mad, but I was going through a quiet period and I really needed the booking and the £250.

I got an email back with the name and postcode of the venue. The email asked me to post an invoice off to them and they would pay me in advance by cheque. The email also listed the guy's mobile number.

My spider sense was tingling even more by now, so I googled the postcode and it came up with an Indian restaurant. So I figured the gig would be in an Indian restaurant which was no problem - worked in those before. But still something didn't seem right, so I phoned the guy's mobile.

The phone rang and a guy with a very deep voice and very strong African accent answered. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Oh hello," I said all cheerful, "it's Paul Bell here, you've been emailing me about the booking in Bristol?"

Now normally when you phone an ents agency or a customer, once they recognise who you are they get very relaxed and chatty very quickly. This guy didn't. He just said "Yeah." The guy certainly didn't sound like he ran an entertainment agency.

"So," I said, "you just want me to post off an invoice to you?"

"Yeah."

"And you'll get a cheque out to me before the booking?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," I said, "I'll do that right away."

"Yeah."

I put the phone down and thought "not on your bloody nellie!"

But me being me, I did send him a nice email (just in case) apologising for not being able to take the booking and hoping he found someone else who would be able to fill the post for him!

The reason I nearly fell for it was the fact that I needed the money and was prepared (up to a point) to not listen to my common sense in order to get a decent booking. I guess that's what they're counting on.

Infinite wrote:People fall for it because of the same reason half of our neat tricks work They are not thinking about what they are about to do they are thinking about what it is going to get them.

Hope/Need is a pretty powerful motivator. I have a friend who constantly gets nailed by scams and when I ask him what he was thinking it was always, "If I could just get this then I could do x."

I always tell him when you use the words if this then that you had better be darn sure the IF part isn't the part people are going to question.