Maxwell Render | Official public forum

Got this email the other day:





...looks pretty official, no? Problem is...I don't *have* a Bank of America account. Nevermind that, look at the honesty, forthrightness...letting me know that their SSL is not valid, but rest assured, they're working on it. They even make sure to show the whole URL so you *know* it's no shady hyperlink sending you somewhere strange...but oops, don't look at the source:


<a href="http://211.72.154.82/~suzan/.www.bankof ... ep1.htm</a>


I guess that's at least 10% clever. Ok...grab the source, and fire off an email to let the appreciative, and *real*, Bank of America in on the deal...and then back to work.

Fast forward a couple days...hmm...I can't stand it...I wonder where it really goes. No problem, fire up Firefox, grab an temporary anonymous proxy IP, and hit up the page. Upon my much anticipated arrival (proxy is slooooow), I find the lack of effort extremely disappointing:





Unbelievable. What computer-illiterate fool's computer-illiterate grandma would fall for this? I just don't get it.

Utterly unsatisfied...I simply must know more.





...you didn't think I was gonna use real info did you?

Just to make sure nobody gets hurt, I used the longest-expired imaginary card I could find in my fake wallet. Apparently they're not too picky about this, because everything seems to check out. Now they want to verify my very very very private info...OK...let's just do that.





Solid gold...everything must check out perfect, because all I have to do now is await my 'Profile Update Pending'.





And that's it...I'm just redirected to the real Bank of America site, with all of my fake info safely stored on some slimebag internet schmoe's SSL EncryptedServer®©™. If these moronic punks are going to waste my time trying to scam my dough...wouldn't you think they could at least try to be a little clever about it?

Well, I guess not.

oOooOo I've got all your card information now! I'm RICH!!!!!!!!

These guys are indeed very funny.
We´ve had a few of these, and they couldn´t even spell half of the words correctly in Swedish.

Guess they forgot to send you a confirmation email regarding your profile updates...

Okay, I've never fallen for stuff like this because I don't trust anything like that unless I contact them first. But for people who don't think about stuff like that, that seemed VERY convincing to me. I can definately see people falling for that. But then again they're the same ones who buy the amazing diet pills at 2AM from the TV.

The effort put in would be enough I think. I wonder still how many people fall for this. I'm 99% sure my dad would

Raise your hand, if you like giving computer support over the phone to friends and relatives.

Step1: Spend 30 min trying to explain how to send an email with attachment
Step2: Find something quickly that's breakable and can be easily replaced.

Why mess with Bank of America, ...what'd they ever do to you ?

I'm more curious if fred and billybob married sisters? ...and if Uncle Fred and Uncle Billybob are the fathers of those sisters?

...and most most most importantly, ...what it's like living in the same neighbourhood ?

Mihai wrote: I'm 99% sure my dad would

You can't be serious.

If someone walked up to him on the street and handed him a sheet of paper with blanks for ALL of his valuable information...are you saying that you think he'd fill it out for them?

_________________________

@Chris: it's truly scary...but...neighbourhood? What country do you think this is?

... I don't know.

...that's sounds like a south side hood to me. Most south sides usually contain a few Billybob's ...

..oh for the record, ... my mom's right behind Mihai's dad happily signing away on the dotted line. ...that's more scary to me.

* We have blanket/global rules... no communications period when it comes to the bank and financials. ...for them, ..that is.

ivox3 wrote:no communications period when it comes to the bank and financials. ...for them, ..

You taking care of the wills too? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. ...

Mihai wrote: Step1: Spend 30 min trying to explain how to send an email with attachment
Step2: Find something quickly that's breakable and can be easily replaced.

Sadly, these steps sound way to familiar.

Rochr wrote:

Mihai wrote: Step1: Spend 30 min trying to explain how to send an email with attachment
Step2: Find something quickly that's breakable and can be easily replaced.

Sadly, these steps sound way to familiar.

I find these steps wholly inaccurate, ... I believe 30min.'s is way to conservative.

Firefox protected me from opening that link ... did you get this message too ?