"Is this your photo"-like scams

Tags: e-mail, spam.
By lucb1e on 2011-10-29 19:24:59 +0100

I never get how people can be so stupid to click on them. After the first at least, they are obvious: e-mails trying to make you click on some link, either because there is a comment on your profile, or some remarkable photo of you.

There are generally two types of e-mails. The first is an English e-mail from a Dutch person to whom you never spoke in English at all. The second is a Dutch e-mail with sentence constructions so bad that you would think they hired a typewriting chimp from a Dutch zoo. Not that the English ones are that well written, but the Dutch ones are just funny. Here is a Dutch one translated to English:
"Your photo remained unnoticed again and good via the Open ConnectBook by [John Doe] for the 8th time this month.
Alltogether 98 additions were sent in and many of these are positive!
Look here yourself it became very visible what was said again by your acquintances
Via this webpage- you can see this content and feedback ; http://www.msnhotprofile.com/?show=[your@email.address]
We remain curious about what you yourself think of this all [John Doe]"

John doe should be replaced with the contact's name (under whose name it is sent), and your@email.address is the recipient's e-mail address.

Today though, there was a similar e-mail in remarkably good Dutch. Best Dutch I have ever seen in spam actually. I can't even translate it just right, it contains some typically Dutch sentence constructions, and even though I can translate them I can't make it sound like typical English.
"hay Luc,
I just saw you at www.msnseeitnow.com/?Qz=7923141

i really laughed; you just look so bad there!

have a good morning
[John]"

It has blank lines where they should be, it knows my first name (I know how it got this, but most mailers don't bother and just go for "hi" without name), it was written by a Dutch speaker (typically Dutch sentences and informal), and it either adapts to the time of day ("have a good morning") or was simply sent in the morning (arrived at 10:26am).
That's a first. The only way I can tell it's spam is because it has the same meaning as the other e-mails ("i commented on your picture or profile so go there"), and because it has "msn" in the domain name. That second thing is something I don't get. If you want to look like a social network or some photo share thing, at least tinyurl/bitly the link (and make it go to an IP address, saves you the trouble of registering a new domain) or think of a better domain name.

Well it seems to work out, people still click the links, so I guess it's too much trouble to tinyurl a link; it takes a whole 15 seconds! And why would you tinyurl an IP when you can also go through the trouble of registering a domain? (/sarcasm)

Really, I don't get it...