Home› Archived Forums› General Discussion

Unusual HSBC phishing attempt

njpnjp Posts: 27,583
Forum Member
✭✭✭
in General Discussion #1
For some reason, people who cobble together phishing emails often can't spell, or write coherent sentences. I expect this. What I don't expect is for them to acknowledge spelling mistakes, but still not bother to fix them. Here's an extract from one I got today:
If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but to temporaly suspend your account.

We ask that you allow at least 72 hours for the case to be
investigated and we strongly recommend to verefy (sic) your
account in that time.

Best Regards,
Colette Nugent
Head of Customer Communications
Three spelling mistakes in two sentences. But that "(sic)" is in the email, not added by me!

A quick google threw up this page discussing a PayPal scam, where the wording is largely identical to my email, and all the spelling mistakes are noted with "(sic)".

So it seems that my would-be scammer has re-purposed a scam email he read about on that site, but failed to delete a "sic".

I wonder if sites exposing scam emails end up generating more scam emails than they foil?

Comments

  • fizzycatfizzycat Posts: 6,120
    Forum Member
    ✭
    #2
    Not sure about the answer to your question but it amazes me that anyone is stupid enough to fall for 'bank' phishing scams.

    On an average day I get emails claiming to be from at least 6 banks I've never had accounts with, all telling me my account in suspended unless I respond or they are updating their database or whatever. Today I've already had them from HSBC and the Alliance and Leicester. So why would I think for a moment that the 'Abbey' one that comes in later is genuine? (Especially as they're not called Abbey now)

    How can anyone be so gullible?
  • IWantPVRIWantPVR Posts: 8,302
    Forum Member
    ✭
    #3
    That is pretty sloppy work but if someone decides to break the law and go phishing, then they will, whether the web provides them with templates or not.

    In this case, the inclusion of the spelling mistakes and the (sic) will probably mean they are less successful than they otherwise would have been.
  • Alt-F4Alt-F4 Posts: 10,960
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    #4
    njp wrote: »
    So it seems that my would-be scammer has re-purposed a scam email he read about on that site, but failed to delete a "sic".

    Certainly looks like it
    I wonder if sites exposing scam emails end up generating more scam emails than they foil?

    Probably
Sign In or Register to comment.