Gone phishing

Don’t fall for phishing scams that try to get American army families to reveal their banking information. I’ve been getting a bunch of e-mail on my Yahoo! account lately, seeking relatives of [insert name here] See, who was apparently a very wealthy executive in, you guessed it, Nigeria. I’ve been very tempted to write back and ask for more information because, golly gee whiz, I’ve just started doing the See family tree and while the circumstances are tragic indeed, they have uncovered a branch of the family I had not known about and if they could please maybe tell me a little more about this person and their family so I can match it up. I’m too lazy to keep up the counter-scam, though.

(I’ve taken screen shots of their e-mail addresses, they’re after the jump.)

The thing is, there are people silly enough to do stupid things because they’re greedy (and they get very little sympathy from me). While it is theoretically possible that I may have a relative who lives in Nigeria and works in company ABC, the odds of such a coincidence are mighty low. Phishers trying to capitalise on confusion caused by grief or anxiety are just despicable, however.

• 30 Aug 2005

• Thinking