12 November 2008

Dumb Spammers

Just received the following spam mail to my work account:

Please note: we tried to contact you several weeks ago, unfortunately we did not receive a response. You still may qualify to become a member and we are extending our invitation to you one more time. As a reminder the date below reflects the initial attempt to contact you. We are providing an additional 5 day extension through November 18, 2008.

Stephen Booth,

I am pleased to inform you that today, October 22, 2008 Emerald Who's Who for Executives and Professionals has selected you as potential candidate into our organization to represent Birmingham, , United Kingdom. Your professional experience with Birmingham Air Conditioning Ltd. as Company Secretary has been recognized and has qualified you to possibly be included. Emerald Who's Who is the authority for professional networking and recognition in virtually every industry across the globe.

Based on the research our team and our affiliates were able to find, you are the type of professional we would like to include as part of our executive and professional organization.
Our members assist each other with business and career opportunities everyday. Emerald Who's Who is consistently helping our members increase existing business, develop new ventures and acquire new contacts, locally, nationally and internationally.

Should you be inducted into Emerald Who's Who, you will also be included in the 2008-2009 edition of Emerald Who's Who for Executives and Professionals. This is an annual edition of accomplished individuals across the world.

Your inclusion into our organization requires that further professional information about you is provided within the next 5 days.

Please note there is no charge to be considered into the Emerald Who's Who for Executives and Professionals.
We have provided the below links to help you submit your information quickly and easily. Both URL's are the same, however should you not be able to click, please copy and paste #2. Please note your information will be encrypted and transferred safely over the internet as we use, the leading security service for security and protection. Your information will also be protected once stored on our secure servers.
> Click on this hyper link
1) http://ewwdirectory.com/ [MUNGED]
Or manually enter the below link into your web browser
2) http://ewwdirectory.com/ [MUNGED]

While our editorial department is continuously working on publishing timelines, I cannot assure that you will be included in our next annual publication featuring all executives and professionals like yourself. If we receive your information in the next 5 days, we can still consider your submission.


Kind regards,

Anthony Miller

Research Director

Emerald Who's Who for Executives and Professionals Inc.

954 3rd Ave, Suite 817, NY, New York, 10022
http://ewwdirectory.com/ [MUNGED]

Emerald Who's Who for Executives and Professionals is not affiliated with Marquis Who's Who or any other Who's Who organization or publication.

Thank you for your time, should you wish to no longer receive any further e-mail from us at this address, please follow the directions below.
We make every effort to remove those individuals who have asked to be unsubscribe, however if you have done so via email, and have received this for a second time, we apologize. Please use the unsubscribe link below to ensure you are removed from our invitations. Thank you for your time and patience.


I am not nor ever have been a Company Secretary and I don't work for and have never worked for Birmingham Air Conditioning. Not only are the spamming but also they're spamming the wrong person.

They should be drowned!

11 November 2008

Is this a scam? Calls from 01792572140

I've been getting a number of calls from people claiming to work for 3 who then ask a bunch of questions to "Confirm [my] identity", the sort of questions someone running an identity theft scam might ask. I've emailed 3 to check:


Hi,

I have received a number of missed calls from a number apparently in Swansea (01792572140) today I managed to pick on up and the person on the other end identified themselves as being from yourselves. They said that someone would call me to talk about handset upgrades (despite me saying I'm quite happy with my handset and I had selected it explicitly because it is a Skype Phone and I had bought it to use Skype). they then went on to ask a series of questions, "To confirm [my] identity". These questions were the sort that an identity thief would be likely to ask (home post code, date of birth &c) and, as I pointed out to them, they called me so of the two people on the call I'm the one who's identity does not need to be confirmed.

Can you please confirm if the phone number 01792572140 is one you use for outgoing calls (this was the first thing to trigger my suspicions, it's rare for an outgoing line from a call centre to identify itself).

Thanks

Stephen


Hopefully they'll respond soon.