The Spam Report

Well, as you might suspect, that’s another crock of crap. Sure, there are legitimate web sites out there that let you send a cute electronic greeting card to someone, but unless you recognize the name of the person who sends you one of these, your best off to just delete it.

Although these are not phishing e-mails in the traditional way I usually think of them, I suppose they belong in that category since the sender is fishing to get you to a certain web site.

As I understand these e-mail messages, the goal for most of them is to infect your computer with some type of nasty program that would probably run in the background and never reveal it’s presence to you as it sends out spam or whatever other unscrupulous task it is assigned to perform by those that created it.

This particular message below tries to direct victims to a web site in France by making them think that someone has sent them a nice Hallmark Electronic Greeting Card.

Whatever this web site in France was set up to do, you can be sure it is something that isn’t going to do you a bit of good and will probably help some low-life spammer make more money as your expense.

Phony Hallmark Greeting Card message follows:

Ha! These low-life spamming scum have the nerve to quote Mark Twain at the end of their pathetic crap.

From: “Lending Center” <Millard@mairie-lille.fr>
To: XXXXXX
Subject: Complete your loan application 
Date: Sunday, August 26, 2007 11:48 PM

Are you still paying too much for your mortgage?

You can receive up to $270,000
for a low monthly of $695.

To lock your rate Right Now: 
Go here  -  (Scummy Spam Link Removed)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910)   

The first time I got one of these, I actually had a few minutes of uncertainty and wondered if it might be the real thing because I do have an eBay account and do occasionally buy or sell something.

As you can see, I was not able to do this one justice by just posting it due to formatting requirements, so you can just click on the image below to see the entire message.

You’ll notice how they cleverly try to involve the emotions of their potential victims by using inflammatory language while threatening to report you to eBay.

They hope you will react angrily and without thinking and click the link they provided which does not, as they want you to believe, link to the eBay site.

The links they provided for potential victims to click on actually lead to a web site that is hosted in Bangladesh. Lord knows what is actually on it or whether it would try to infect your PC with nasty programs or if it is a straight-forward attempt to capture eBay usernames and passwords.

eBay phishing spam message follows (click to enlarge):

This is a pretty basic prescription drug spam message but what is interesting is that the spammers placed an image inside the e-mail so that spam filters would not be able to detect words like “Viagra” because they were not included using plain-old text.

You can see that there are also a bunch of nonsense at the bottom of the message which was generated by whatever spamming software these scumbags were using. This is to make it appear that these messages have some actual content beyond just an image. Spam filters probably recognize messages that only contain an image as suspected spam.

As you can see, I blurred out the name of the web site these idiots were promoting so as not to tempt anyone who might read this and is operating with less than a reasonable amount of intellect from visiting the site and making more money for these spamming cretins.

Prescription drug spam message follows:

have

Crdits Fleurs Plantes Hifi Photo Vido Jouets Livres Musiques Films Maison Jardin

Branch June Random political trick Holy Grail Paris taime story: piss Alan

Spelling Bee gives wether spelling correct. GS touch type improve amusing effective ways.

Typing Tutor grasp skill. Virtual filled flashcard suite ever. Hindi available quickly looking

CAROLINE WEBERThe modern luxury industry sham

Here is a pretty typical 419-type scam e-mail message.

This one is not particularly creative or entertaining, so I give it a pretty low rating. I have seen better.

The mis-spellings are pretty common with these messages since they are mostly from countries that are not primarily English-speaking.

419 scam spam e-mail message follows:

Dear Friend,

My name is Ku Chung Kwong. I am the auditor general and computer
 manager here in our bank.

I have only written to seek your indulgence and assistance. I wish to
 make a transfer involving a sum amount of base 9,000,000.00 {Nine
 Million B.Pounds Sterlings} of Late Ms. Carol White out of the bank,
 she died since 1999, till now the account remain dormat/unclaimed.

I am proposing to make this transfer to a designated bank account of your choice. Thus, for your indulgence and support, I propose an offer of 25% of the total amount to be yours after the transfer has been successfully concluded.

Kindly reply me stating your interest, and I shall furnish you with the details and necessary procedure with which to make the transfer progress. I am anxiously awaiting your response.

Regards,

Ku Chung Kwong.

Low-life pump-and-dump spammers are always adapting their tactics in their efforts to get their messages through spam filters and into the in-boxes of their potential victims, and sadly, they are quite good at it.

One of their latest tactics is to include their message entirely in a PDF files that is sent as an e-mail attachment.

I copied the PDF file from the e-mail message onto my PC so I could paste the text here only to find that they had put password protection on the PDF file which does not allow the text to be copied to the Windows clipboard for posting elsewhere.

They probably do this to make it more difficult to copy their text and post it on the web like I am doing here. Sorry, maggots (not really), but you didn’t even slow me down.

Well, if you know how to do it, these lame attempts to restrict access to PDF files can be defeated quite easily and that is exactly what I have done. It just makes it all the more satisfying to post this one.

Pump-and-dump stock spam follows:

JUMP ON BOARD NOW!

Huge gains predicted for EXMT
Exchange Mobile Telecommunications, Corp (OTC: EXMT)
A 10,000.00 investment could turn into 40,000.00
in the next 7 trading sessions - READ ON!

Company Profile
Company Name: Exchange Mobile Tele, Corp.
Ticker Symbol: OTC: EXMT
Wednesday Close: 0.17
Wednesday Volume: 929.379
2 Day Target: 0.30 (our estimate)
5 Day Target: 0.50 (our estimate)
7 Day Tar get 0.80 (our estimate)

We are predicting some major moves on this stock in the coming trading sessions.

We pick winners for our readers and we believe EXMT is no exception!
ADD IT TO YOUR PORTFOLIO NOW!

In our opinion, with its flagship product the, Tbar Instant Platform, Exchange Mobile is poised to make some major jumps in price and volume in the coming trading sessions.

Exchange Mobile delivers a complete solution to assist users in maintaining contact whether they are stationed at a computer terminal or roaming outdoors on a cell phone.
Exchange Mobile incorporates an instant platform that is enabled for multi-point access and instant messaging on PC to PC, PC to mobile, and mobile to mobile connections.

Tbar instant platform includes a global wireless text messaging network, connecting to over 100 mobile operators worldwide. Tbar instant platform is an instant engine, through which customers can chat online as well as on wireless devices.

It can assist online enterprises and communities in creating a flexible mechanism to reduce churn, contributing to subscriber loyalty and retention.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???
The answer is simple, this could equate to huge dollars on Wall Street as SMS technology companies and content providers are getting noticed by hedge funds and institutional investors.

We are predicting that EXMT will experience gains as high as 400% in the next 7 trading sessions.

We strongly urge you to call your stock broker and ask them about EXMT.

This is not an offer to buy or sell any security. American Stock Trader Press discloses that they were paid ten thousand dollars for distributi on of this report. This report contains forward-looking statements. Please do due diligence before investing in any company.

Best of luck to you in the markets!