PhilS32767 Posted October 17, 2004 Share Posted October 17, 2004 Looking to the collective wisdom of the Spamcop user community for some insights here... What is the real point behind all the phony "mortgage application accepted" spams? Are they a kind of phishing expedition, to get the gullible to provide working e-mail addresses or identity and financial info? Should they be copied to the reporting address for contributions to antiphishing.org's database of phishing scams? If they are not phishing hooks but rather simply less-than-honest mortgage brokers and peddlers of deceptive mortgage instruments (such as interest-only mortgages or mortgages that have a mechanism in the fine print for enabling negative amortization of principal), is there a good third party to report actual mortgage scams to? Another category of spam I suspect may be a form of phishing hook: the ads for websites or organizations purporting to match up furtive seekers of sexual encounters of one kind or another... "hot singles", "bored housewives", etc. Are these things basically phishing hooks for identity info and working e-mail addresses? Finally... is there any good third party to report the following categories of spam to? * Fake diploma mills * Advertisements for "bullet-proof" web and mail hosts * Claims of stolen identity and financial data for sale The latter category strikes me as most likely to be crude Joe jobs of one kind or another. Nobody really trafficking in stolen identity information would spam the world about it. Anybody have further insights on this kind of thing? Thanks in advance for any constructive input/insight into what the modus operandi behind each of these categories of spam is likely to be, and any worthwhile third party to copy on any of these categories of spam. -- Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted October 17, 2004 Share Posted October 17, 2004 In general, from reports of those that went into filling out some of those mortgage offers, awaiting the phone call, and then trying to research things .. the plot seems to boil down to some mortgage / finance outfits paying for "leads" .. so the spammer allegedly picks up some coinage for the "reference" from the spam victims. Identity theft ... just went through a bit of discussion about this, replete with links .. I think I even added a U.S. Government site to the FAQ (?) .. try a search using the "identity theft" for the key. Reporting is a chore, in that even if there are links around (see "other places" in the FAQ, Marjolein's web-site for instance) there's the matter of jurisdiction, manpower, and that in general, laws in place only get invoked upon the real loss exceeding some monetary threshold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qjvgpuryy Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 In a similar vein, does anyone know the real point behind the "let's trade links" emails that I receive at one of the common service mailbox names (see our friend Google for more information)? (Here's a Tracking URL.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 In a similar vein, does anyone know the real point behind the "let's trade links" emails that I receive at one of the common service mailbox names (see our friend Google for more information)? (Here's a Tracking URL.) Technically, what is to be gained in this exchange is the hope that the referenced site will show up higher in a Google search result ... current suggested scenario that a site with many links has more / better/ whatever content than a site with no or few links pointing to it. Who this individual/outfit actually may be is a question. It is true that the sportcraftcars.com link was in fact added to the page referenced .... that page also has a hard-coded [an error occurred while processing this directive] at both the top and bottom of the page ... strange .... even weirder, the "home page" displays the following; Welcome to askmrcars.com! This is a place-holder for the askmrcars.com home page. If you are the domain owner: Log in to the Site Administrator interface to start managing this site (you might want to bookmark this link). Why would someone try to generate traffic and links to a web-page that hasn't actually had content inserted yet, while building the sub-pages up? I can't follow that thinking. Concepts may be a bit related, but actually not sure, as the concept of "askmrcars" isn't really explained at this point. The Domain registration data sure doesn't answer that question either; Domain Name.......... askmrcars.com Creation Date........ 2004-09-03 Registration Date.... 2004-09-03 Expiry Date.......... 2006-09-03 Organisation Name.... Scientific Marketing Scientific Marketing running some kind of "ask me about cars" thing???? All the data does match up, stuff technically exists, so this isn't your normal spam. Just hard to discern what's really going on "there" .... As far as "your" web-page http://www.sportcraftcars.com/ (there's another link/pointer<g>) ... I sure get the feeling that thoughts of resurrecting the multiple old AFX (?) slot tracks over in storage are probably more than silly ..??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qjvgpuryy Posted October 25, 2004 Share Posted October 25, 2004 Maybe a link from a real site makes them look more legitimate (or real)? All the data does match up, stuff technically exists, so this isn't your normal spam. Just hard to discern what's really going on "there" .... As good a reason as any to a) not answer and report it. (Unless this will be added to the list of things to not report?) I sure get the feeling that thoughts of resurrecting the multiple old AFX (?) slot tracks over in storage are probably more than silly ..??? Not necessarily. The owner says that there is a very strong fan base for HO scale slot racing, but their numbers aren't growing the way 1/32 scale racing is, so if you needed replacement or new track / cars / parts, it should be possible to buy some somewhere (unfortunately, we don't carry any). On the other hand, if you wanted to sell them, eBay is would probably like to be your friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted October 25, 2004 Share Posted October 25, 2004 As good a reason as any to a) not answer and report it. (Unless this will be added to the list of things to not report?) The sites that I manage have the role accounts defined on the Contact Us: page. I tend to go off the deep end at these same link requests that come in and state "I've looked at your site, etc. ...." but obviously overlooked those account definitions. For instance; where does one read the invitation to send this crap in this list? info at <domain>.com questions about products sales at <domain>.com questions about an order webmaster at <domain>.com problems with the web site Included in the FAQ for the same site, my definition / description of spam; Any and all incoming spam will be reported to the appropriate ISP. As far as this site is concerned, spam is defined as any unsolicited incoming email that does not relate to the concept that we, as the product retailers, are only interested in meeting our customer's wishes, dreams, and desires. Any unsolicited email you receive that looks like it came from us has had its headers forged. Please make use of http://www.spamcop.net to make a complaint to the appropriate ISP. And again, these idiots still send these idiotic requests for links. Not necessarily. The owner says that there is a very strong fan base for HO scale slot racing, but their numbers aren't growing the way 1/32 scale racing is, so if you needed replacement or new track / cars / parts, it should be possible to buy some somewhere (unfortunately, we don't carry any). On the other hand, if you wanted to sell them, eBay is would probably like to be your friend. Oh yeah, e-bay keeps showing me that I can't afford to get back into things like this <g> And to think that 1/32 (even 1/24) scale stuff was "hot" back before the U.S. Government invited me to play on their team over 30+ years ago. I can recall that there were over a half-dozen "tracks" around town back then and all were standing-room-only, waiting list of hours to get your car on track. Helped one guy with too much money and no business skills set one up to solve his waiting time crisis <g> ... of course, being young and naive at the time, my business skills weren't that much better .. but I did get my track time <g> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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