Text Spammer from Hawaii? Nope.

Received this from 808-221-6738:

Your entry in our drawing WON you a FREE $500 Target Giftcard! Enter "808" at www.target.com.tltv.biz to claim it and we can ship it to you immediately!

 This text has also been sent from the following numbers:

• 714-264-5281
• 612-244-6187
• 786-227-1051
• 419-377-6208
• 714-227-5949
• 714-227-4168
• 612-244-9504
• 714-227-5525

Going to the link brings you to this

According to the spamtext I got, the "code" I'm expected to enter is my area code. Having tried this a couple of times, I've discovered that you can enter any three numbers, which will then be "validated" by the system. Not surprisingly, each time I was told told that I had a winning code, whereupon I was redirected to this

Naturally, what the spammer wants is your email address, so they can spam the living shit out of it and so they can sell a confirmed active email address on the market where spammers buy and sell email addresses to each other.

I seriously doubt if there have been any gift cards from Target given away through this site. Like many sites of a similar nature, it's all about finding valid email addresses to add to spam lists. Like other major retailers, Target doesn't need to reply on textspammers to get people to want their gift cards. That's what advertising is for.

Unfortunately, a WHOIS search for myrewardshouse.com reveals nothing beyond the knowledge that the website owner has enabled WhoIs Guard to prevent people like me from finding out who they really are. But, you can file a complaint against them with Namecheap by going to the Support page.

A mean-spirited person may be tempted to go to the webpage and enter any random set of numbers; upon getting to the next page, they could enter any made-up email address that they feel like. For example, I get a lot of 419 scam letters and I may enter the Reply-To address of the scammers, so they can get spammed by these assclowns. However, that would be very cruel of me, as the scammers email address could soon be filled with spam. And we wouldn't want that, would we?


Duane Browning

Watch Out For These Potential Frauds!

I was following-up on a report that someone found a secret shopper scam job on SNAGAJOB and I found this ad, here (for Englewood, New Jersey) and here (for Mobile, Alabama):

BECOME A MYSTERY SHOPPER

Dear Shopper,

As a mystery shopper, your job will be to evaluate and comment on customer service in a wide variety of shops, stores, restaurants and services in your area. This is your chance to get paid to shop & dine out. You can make money, have fun and help improve customer service. The importance of customer service has turned mystery shopping into a $1.6 billion a year industry.

We are recruiting new workers for a quick survey from all states – it all depends on what projects we are working on at the time. While some assignments may seem attractive and some may not but at the end you will get paid

Example: An aircraft journey or a meal in a restaurant - all require a conscientious and diligent approach.

You will not be able to sit back and enjoy the flight or meal because you will be constantly taking mental notes and discreetly jotting down key notes when the opportunity arises. it now depends on the work you are been choosed to do for the company.

Secret shoppers are often given assignments to simply test the service skills of the employees. Some of the common things secret shoppers will be looking for include:

- how long it takes before the secret shopper is greeted
- how was the secret shopper treated during their visit at the location
- the types of products shown
- cleanliness of store and store associates
- speed of service

After the visit, the secret shopper will then submit their opinions about their shopping experience. That information is then reviewed and analyzed to find areas in their service that need improvement.

Yours faithfully
Human Resources
Micheal Smith
Mystery Shopper® LLC

A few things about this ad strike me as possibly not being legitimate, such as using a nonexistent word "choosed", as well as misspelling the name Michael at the end of both ads. Most people may have misgivings about working for someone who can't even spell their own name.

I found another ad here signed with the name Nicole Young and the location being Newark, New Jersey. The same use of the word "choosed" makes me think that the ads' posters are simply using copy & paste to be able to make their own job easier.

The locations given are rather far from each other, which should ring a few mental alarm bells. How is a mystery shopper company able to have client companies so far apart from each other? If this ad is fake, it makes sense in order for fewer people to catch-on to the possibility of a scam. Fraudsters will work their scam in one or two places that are far away from each other and when enough people begin to complain about not being reimbursed, the scammers move on. They learned from their earlier mistake of posting dozens of ads all at once across the country on Craigslist or Backpage and people who did an Internet search could find similar ads posted simultaneously all across the USA and Canada, which probably kept more people from getting caught-up in them. But, fake mystery shopper scams do have a measure of success, which is why they are still around.

I decided to do a bit of research on the company Mystery Shopper® LLC and I found absolutely nothing, with or without the name Micheal (or Michael) Smith added to my search queries. None of the three ads posts a physical address or telephone number for the company.

The ads even mentions airline trips as being on a potential list of assignments for the mystery shopper, which are likely to be the most expensive for the shopper to have to pay out-of-pocket and potentially disastrous for the individual if these ads are not legitimate.

I didn't respond to any of the ads, due to the personal information being requested from me by SNAGAJOB, so I have no idea what kind of reply I would get from them.

They could be legitimate. But, every instinct I have is screaming "It's a fake!".


Duane Browning

Scam Email Posing As The FBI

I checked my email a couple of days ago and found this:

From: Federal Bureau Investigation
To:
Sent: Friday, May 4, 2012 4:10 PM
Subject: GET BACK TO US NOW TO AVOID PROBLEM

For your Kind Attention.

This is an official advice from the FBI foreign remittance/telegraphic dept.it has come to our notice that bank of Nigeria has released us$8m to BANK OF AMERICA in your name as the beneficiary, The bank Nigeria knowing fully well that they do not have enough facilities to effect this payment from Nigeria to your account, They used what we know as a “secret diplomatic transit payment” (S.T.D.P) to pay this fund through wire transfer, but this means of transfer can not reflect to your account as this was wrong method of transfer.

So to this regards we are contacting you to provide the proof of this us$8m you are about to receive is a clean money by sending FBI Identification Record and also Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer(DIST) to satisfy that the money you are about to receive is legitimate and real money. You are to forward the documents to us immediately, and if you don't have it in your possession, do let us know so that we will direct and inform you where to obtain the document and send to us so that we will ask the bank holding your
funds to go ahead Crediting your account immediately.

Get back to us immediately if you don't have the document so that we will inform you the particular place to obtain the document because we have come to realize that the fund was transfer without provision of Identification Record and Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer (DIST) often referred to as a Criminal History Record or Rap Sheet, is a listing of certain information taken from fingerprint submissions retained by the FBI in connection with arrests and, in some instances, federal employment,naturalization, or military
service. These conditions is Valid only for few days after we shall take actions on canceling the payment and then charge you for illegally moving funds out of Nigeria.

Get back to us now with requirement.

--------------------------------------------------------
WARNING: failure to produce the above requirement in the next 72 hours, legal action will be taken immediately by arresting and detaining you, if found guilty, you will be jailed. As terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering is a serious problem in our community today. The F.B.I will not stop at any length in tracking down and prosecuting any criminal who indulge in this criminal act. FORWARD THE DOCUMENT TO US VIA EMAIL ATTACHMENT AS SOON AS YOU OBTAIN IT.

Thanks

FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller, III

The Reply-To address was federalbureauinvestigationsod1@live.com and not using the official fbi.gov email address that a real FBI agent would be using. The fbi.gov address was simply spoofed.

Aside from the poor English grammar used in the email and its use of threats against my personal freedom, there are quite a few clues to the fact that this email is fraudulent and not worth worrying about:

1. the Federal Bureau of Investigation does not contact criminal suspects by email. They would either call you on the phone to ask you to come to their office and answer some questions or they would simply send some agents out to find you and physically bring you in;
2. the Director of the FBI does not send out emails to suspects, they have a lot of field agents to do the job;
3. I doubt if the FBI would handle a case involving international money transfers, since I think that would be the US Customs Service's job or the Secret Service. I could be wrong, though;
4. using an email address not directly under the control of the FBI is a big no-no for their agents conducting official business, especially if it's the Director;

I could go on all night about this, but the point has been made.

Scammers posing as the FBI or some other US federal agency are relying on people being so afraid of going to prison that they won't stop and think before they send their personal information off in a reply, which is a reason for the dire threats included at the bottom of the email. The real FBI would never send an email out with such things, as it is unprofessional and possibly illegal.

If you get an email claiming to be from the FBI, it's a scam. If you have any doubts, call your local FBI office to make certain.

Duane Browning