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Why would someone do this?

 
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Got a mail today.

--------------------------------
Esteemed member of the public.
Apple Inc United Kingdom welcomes you to the new year , Year 2012.
We are an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers.
In commemoration of the legacy that our Late Founder Steve Jobs left behind. We the UK branch have decided to organise an apple competition with a brand new apple I PHONE 4S , a brand new Land Rover SUV and Ј980,000.00 (Nine Hundred and Eighty Thousand Dollars) as gifts.
You are free to join in this competition by answering the questions below.

1, Which of the following is not manufactured by Apple Inc.
a, IPAD. b, ASSAULT RIFLE. c, IPOD

2, Apple Inc was founded where?
a, JAPAN. b, CANADA. c, U.S.A.

3, Steve Jobs died in what year?
a, 2012. b, 2008. C, 2011.
Please send your entries to our result department at
Email: applecommemoration@bigstring.com
Once your entry is sent in please give 24-48 hours for us to respond.

Wishing you a most prosperous new year.
Arthur Levinson.
Chairman Apple Incorporated.
R.I.P STEVE
------------------------------------------------
 
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Sounds like a scam to me. I strongly suspect that if you reply you'll be told you've "won", and they just need your bank details to send you the money.

(For a start, I'd expect Apple to be able to provide their own email address, rather than going to a free provider!)
 
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Someday scammers are going to learn how to use correct English grammar and spelling, and then they'll be harder to suss out. Apparently that day isn't today.
 
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Matthew Brown wrote:Sounds like a scam to me. I strongly suspect that if you reply you'll be told you've "won", and they just need your bank details to send you the money.



And then you'll find there are bank transfer fees to be paid before you receive the money, and various other payments too. If you pay those, you still won't get any money.
 
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The fact that they contacted you out of the blue is enough to know that it's a scam. You don't even need to read the body.
 
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Isn't it possible to track the source of email? You can get IP address of email from there to ISP and finally to spammer.
 
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Saurabh Pillai wrote:Isn't it possible to track the source of email? You can get IP address of email from there to ISP and finally to spammer.


You can, with some work, get an idea. But IP addresses are easy to spoof, and the scriptkiddies have lots of code that will spoof without requiring any talent or technical ability.

Really fixing email is impossible, it would requiring new RFCs that are not compatible with the email systems of today. Its technically possible, but politically not.
 
Paul Clapham
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And a large percentage of spam comes from spambots -- malware which has been loaded on the computers of unsuspecting people who didn't have good enough virus protection. Those people would be shocked if they knew their computers were responsible for pumping out spam.
 
Arun Kumarr
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Though I'm sure that this is a spam, I was worried more on using someone's name for the spam.
Some one who has inspired millions and met a peaceful death. What sort of sick person would do that?
I come from a culture where, no matter how bad one is, you don't talk bad about a dead person or do things that smears their name and fame.
 
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Arun Kumarr wrote:Though I'm sure that this is a spam, I was worried more on using someone's name for the spam.
Some one who has inspired millions and met a peaceful death. What sort of sick person would do that?
I come from a culture where, no matter how bad one is, you don't talk bad about a dead person or do things that smears their name and fame.



I have seen worse through communication and action.
 
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I got a lots of emails those claims me to be very lucky to get a handsome amount of money as a winner, or a Job of thousands of Euro monthly the job for which I never applied. I have got many calls from international nos. those claims that I have won Lacs of INR. What I need to do to claim the amount is to submit processing fee in their bank account. I don't think people are so idiot that they will submit a handsome amount to someones account just because he is saying that he will give him a lot of money.
 
Deepak Bala
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I don't think people are so idiot that they will submit a handsome amount to someones account just because he is saying that he will give him a lot of money.



And yet they get scammed and scammers target them relentlessly.
 
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Manoj Kumar Jain wrote:I don't think people are so idiot that they will submit a handsome amount to someones account just because he is saying that he will give him a lot of money.


You might be surprised. Human greed knows no bounds. Google for Nigerian scam/fraud.
 
Saurabh Pillai
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Maneesh Godbole wrote:

Manoj Kumar Jain wrote:I don't think people are so idiot that they will submit a handsome amount to someones account just because he is saying that he will give him a lot of money.


You might be surprised. Human greed knows no bounds. Google for Nigerian scam/fraud.


Yes, one of my relatives got scam email and he was planning to send them requested information before I explained him the details. The problem is only we, techies , able to identify the scam emails. The relative I am referring to, is hardly 12th grade pass.

If someone like him gets an email pretending to be from Apple, Microsoft or IBM which are very well known companies among non-techie people too , that we ran a lottery and your email address got picked in that. It is not that hard to believe. Like they are billion $$ companies and they thought to give away some for higher eduction or something. They don't know, they should check domain of email address.

How do spammers have access to my email address? I get it on my Gmail account too (rarely though). Does that mean Google DB is exposed to backdoor attacks? Or some other websites where I subscribed with my Gmail account? Or they are randomly generating email addresses? or a spyware on my machine which scans files? WTF.

PS : - The Nigerian scam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud#Consequences) has some scary details.
 
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If you mention your e-mail address so that it is visible on a publicly visible web page, then sooner or later you are going to get spam. Spammers write robot programs that search the whole web automatically to harvest e-mail addresses. A robot encounters your e-mail address on a website and puts it in the list of the spammers. Also, far too many websites have very bad security. If you create an account on such websites, then hackers will sooner or later get access to the database with user account information and they'll have your e-mail address that way.

It can happen to the best, but I trust Google a lot more than random web shops and other company websites.

I almost never get spam on my Gmail account, and certainly never in my inbox. Gmail seems to have very good anti-spam filters.

Another dangerous form of spam is phishing mails that pretend to come from your bank. They try to make you think that something is wrong with your online bank account and ask you to click some link and go fill in your username, password etc. on some website. When click the link you are lead to a fake website that looks a lot like it's the real website from your bank. You enter your information and they can steal your money. Recently there was something on TV here about this, with a woman loosing all of her savings, tens of thousands of euros. The bank gave her back all the money, fortunately for her. For the bank, it would cost them more if customers think that they are not trustworthy, so therefore they pay for this. There's an ad campaign now on TV to learn people to never respond to such e-mail.

Unfortunately there are too many bad people who will do whatever to steal your money, and unfortunately there are also too many naïve people who fall for almost anything.
 
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