[Closed] Spam email - it is getting rather good...

I got one from eBay, sounds similar, got through my ISP spam filter too.
It didn't identify my username which was partially what made it suspicious.

Although I tried to forward it to eBay - *then* the ISP complained about a possibly spam email 🙂

Should see some of the ones we get at work. Present a paper at a conference and 6 months later you get emails personally addressed and appearing to be from counterparts in other related institutions about topics kind of related to work. But containing malware documents.

Fortunately most of mine are addressed as Prof. or Dr. but 100% of real work related stuff does not, so they really stand out.

Someone, somewhere goes to a lot of effort.

My spam folder is currently filling up with poor-quality phishing mails from HMRC that are quite touchingly comedic.

Heaven help my MIL and the secretary at work -

Yep, I'm amazed more people don't fall for them.

But containing malware documents.

Generally if you're on a mac, you're immune as 99.9% of malware is Windows centric.

But containing malware documents.

Generally if you're on a mac, you're immune as 99.9% of malware is Windows centric.

But the weakest link is more likely to be the guy between keyboard and chair, not the OS (especially in the corporate environment where things are kept scrupulously up to date - 99.9% of all actual malware infections I've come across are on home machines, not corporate)

Plenty of malware that transcends OS boundaries.

Sadly, generally, 99.9% of corporate users are Windows centric.

I thought in academia there was a much higher % of Mac users?

Not in academia though 😉
And I bet there's lots of windows users there too.

Maybe a bit more Mac use in academia but often it comes down to cost and macs are way overpriced for our lab !

Also get the past conference spam from China etc. Quite annoying

Ban Ki-moon emailed me this week which was nice of him.

His spelling & grammar is pretty bad though 😉 which surprised me but he was offering me a lot of money, so that was good.

(forgot in association with Barrack Obama)

UNCC REFUND PAYMENT FOR YOU
United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC)
+44-871-974-1274

In Affiliation With Barrack Obama Campaign to Assist Scammed Individuals In The Settlement Of Disputes Through RBS (Royal Bank Of Scotland).
How are you doing today? Hope all is well with you and your family? You may not understand why this mail came to you but kindly read the following procedures for your claim.The United Nation Compensation Commission (UNCC) was created in 1991 as a subsidiary organ of the UN Security Council. Its mandate is to process claims and pay compensation for losses and damages suffered as a direct result of Internet Fraud.
The UNCC in conjunction with the Obama Campaign on the 12th of October 2008 organized a confederation meeting which ended 2 weeks later, with the Secretary General to the UNITED NATIONS. This meeting was first held on the 8th of April 2003 by the then secretary to the UN. You can view this page for your perusal (www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/ik344.doc.htm).
This email is directed to all individuals that have been scammed in all parts of the world. In reference to the just concluded meeting, the UNCC in affiliation with Barrack Obama Campaign have agreed to compensate them with categorical payment sum of 500,000GBP each. In its decision 17" of 24th March 2006, the Governing Council established basic principles for the distribution of compensation payments to successful claimants. This decision was made two months before the resolution of the first installment of claims before the Commission.
As stated in the Secretary-General’s report of 2nd May 2006, it was anticipated that the value of approved awards would far exceed the resources available in the Compensation Fund at any given time.The Governing Council therefore devised a mechanism for the allocation of available funds to successful claimants that gave priority to the three urgent categories of claims and which, within each category, would give equal treatment to similarly situated claims. Only when each successful claimant in categories "A", "B" and "C" had been paid an initial amount up to 2,500GBP would payments commence for claims in other categories.
Accordingly, the first phase of payment involved an initial payment of 2,500GBP to each successful individual claimant in categories "A" and "C". However, for humanitarian reasons, all category "B" claims will be paid in full of a total 500,000GBP. A total of GBP3,252,337,997.09 was made available to 1,498,119 successful individual claimants in categories "A", "B" and "C" under the first phase of payments.Claimants includes every foreign contractor that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc.We found your name in our list and that is why you are receiving this email notification.
You are advised hereby to contact Mr Henry Morgan , with your full details Via mail (unitednationorganization@zbavitu.com) as he is our representative in UK who will be releasing your refund payment to you.Contact him immediately for your approved funds(500,000GBP). These funds are in a Global Security Company on your approval for security purpose.
Regards
Ban Ki-Moon
(UN Secretary-General)
Email: unitednationorganization@zbavitu.com
Tell: +44-871-974-1274
http://www.un.org/sg/

Prolly more Unix than anything in the old labs when I was based at Uni. But then that's pretty much expected in the engineering faculty.
The guys doing history and philosophy might be on Macs.

Most of mine now is requests suggesting I submit a paper on a topic very closely related to my job (read: very closely related to the last one I got published 😉 ), with a form to submit, or a link to an online submissions website. I know for a fact that it'd be one of my bosses or a colleague in another institution that I work with that would suggest that, not someone in India/China. And if it were a genuine request from them, it'd come though our conference/media office.

So they do put in a lot of effort, but not quite enough to fool me.

I got one from yahoo email the other day. Looked convincing until you read it. The grammar was appalling. They may be improving the look of their spam but the content is still risible!

I get a few, my fav had the subject header of "Slags with benefits"

someone, somewhere doesn't quite understand the regular phase...