General e-mail SPAM questions

[Robert Baer]

The mix of spam message types in incoming e-mails changes over time,
and presently i see the following types and have questions about them.
1) Subject is usually long and appears to be part of a "contract"
by/from e-bay and sometimes by/from paypal.
Q: Why do the idiot senders bother? Doesn't "everyone" know that (a)
such contracts are only on the official sites, and that (b) "valid"
e-mail subjects do not have the body of the e-mail? Looks stupid and
useless as all hell.
2) Subject has randumb (pun intended) words.
Q: Again, why do the idiot senders bother? Doesn't "everyone" know
that such e-mails are fraudulent and so do not bother with them other
than deleting them?
3) The "universally" despised and continually tiresome MS "update" crap
under widely varying guises that are obviously *not* from M$. Don't the
idiot senders know that M$ *NEVER* sends e-mail notices to anyone?

The Nigerian scam e-mails are quite variable in quantity over time
and the senders will never get a clue.

The above seems to cover about 80% or more of what i am seeing at
present.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

The mix of spam message types in incoming e-mails changes over time,
and presently i see the following types and have questions about
them.

Every day, there are thousands of new computer users who have never seen
the things you describe. How would they know it is spam, or a fraud, or
not from Microsoft?

Did you recognize the first "Windows Update" email you received as a
virus?

"There is a problem with your account. Click here to update."

 

[Robert Baer]

Robert Baer wrote:




Every day, there are thousands of new computer users who have never seen
the things you describe. How would they know it is spam, or a fraud, or
not from Microsoft?

Did you recognize the first "Windows Update" email you received as a
virus?

"There is a problem with your account. Click here to update."

To be totally honest, i did not at that instant.
But i *knew* that all such e-mails are phony because i knew that M$
only uses Snail for communications, and that is very rare and almost
always related to software that you registered with them via Snail.
So it did not matter what the payload might have been, or even *if*
there was any payload; they all got trashed.

Same thing goes regarding e-mails "from your bank" and BS of that
ilk; banks *never* send e-mails; they Snail. Stockbrokers: ditto.
E-bay, ditto *unless* you sent a query to them - and then it is
usually an automated response and the subject is *directly* related to
the one you used.

One has to be incredibly stupid *and* naive to open such garbage.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

One has to be incredibly stupid *and* naive to open such garbage.

Heh... unfortunately, it seems there is a fair number of computer users
who fit your description.