The Spam I Get

Every day, my junk mail folder has emails with interesting subject lines:

• Increase your web presence
• Drugs for one third off
• Business proposition
• You’re qualified for a $250,000 loan

And that’s just last week’s collection. How they got my email address is known only to Microsoft, the Internet gods and broccoli. So, unless they collected it from some business that sells its customer list, they can’t get it from my web site.

Web site performance. The first one usually comes from small Indian, Russian, Ukrainian and Indonesian firms. Some may be legit, but my guess most are not. And would you let a foreign company have access to you web site based on an email proposition. Each one gets the same procedure, block sender and delete. Lord only knows what they are proposing because I never open the email.

Discount drugs. So would you buy prescription or over-the-counter drugs from a pharmacy that sends you an email offering deep discounts? At least, when your health insurance provider requires you to get them through their mail, you have some assurance that the drugs were made my a legitimate manufacturer and have the desired efficacy.

Business proposition. Good grief… Any peddler worth his salt knows that you can’t you develop a business proposition for a customer unless you know something about the business?

$250,000 loan. What bank or financial institution in its right mind would tell people right up front that you qualified for $250,000 loan. Right off the bat, the people sending these emails out have violated the Fed’s rules on “know your customer.”

And, last on this rant is the constant stream of scams that call my mobile phone. Last week it was a voice telling me that “Federal Agent from the IRS needs to talk to you.” Really?

The week before it was a message that starts with “We want to talk to you about your credit card balance?” How do you know?

The one that made me laugh the most was someone claiming to be from the U.S. Government Grant Department! Scammers, you need to do better than that!

Normally, if I don’t recognize the phone number and suspect it’s a robo call, I let it ring until its done. If it is important, they’ll leave a message. Then, I call it back and nine times out of ten, it is not a working number. These calls go in spurts, i.e. they’ll come from all over the U.S., usually with a +1 and then the area code and number. That’s my first clue that it’s a spam call. Then, the pattern goes on at two a day for about a week followed by a gap of a couple of weeks and then another spurt with a different scam. They’re annoying to say the least, but it is a perfect example of what warped, criminal minds can create. It is also sad that they don’t put their creativity to work on something legitimate.

Marc Liebman

March 2018