Arrant Nonsense

Just got this in my inbox, supposedly from a firm called "Baker & McKenzie":

Notice to Appear,

Hereby you are notified that you have been scheduled to appear for your hearing that will take place in the court of Warren in September 4, 2014 at 10:10am. Please bring all documents and witnesses relating to this case with you to Court on your hearing date.

To view copy of the court notice click [here at this redacted link]. Please, read it thoroughly.

Note: If you do not attend the hearing the judge may hear the case in your absence.

Truly yours,Clerk of Court

It is not even addressed to me personally, and comes from a Japanese domain. "The court of Warren" is nicely vague. Toss me a bone, here, guys, what state is it even in?

It's very similar to the one from "EZPass" that I've now gotten in two different inboxes.

Lame. Lame, lame, lame.

Woke up to this in my inbox this morning:

Dear user,

Your account has been compromised Click here [where here is a link to some site I'm pretty sure I've never visited] to verify your account.

Thank you.

Service Team.

No indication of who it's from. No indication that they actually know who I am. Just... "dear user." And, yes, the period was missing after "compromised"--that's a direct copy/paste.

Lame.

In other news, I woke up to a rejection in my inbox this morning and now I get to wait on markets to open up for that one because long story is long. So that's awesome.

So, I checked my spam folder, as I do about once a week, before deleting everything in it. And I got something from "EPPIcard," with the subject line "Unsuccessful password reset."

Understand, I have no idea what an EPPIcard even is. But I opened the email anyway, because phishing emails are usually pretty entertaining.

This one was no exception.

Account status: Suspended
Service status: Freezed

This security notice is to advise you that a unsucsesfull Password Reset was recently attempted on your account.
If you are unaware of these changes, please restore your EPPICard account right now using using the folowing link :
[fake link deleted]
Thank you for using EPPICard

"Freezed."

Lamest...phishing attempt...EVER.

Dude, if you're going to try and steal my information through Amazon, it might behoove you to change the delivery dates on this stuff I supposedly ordered from February 2007 to something a little more...current?

And if the subject line actually had anything to do with the actual email, that'd be just peachy. It's like they just threw everything on there they possibly could:

FIP NOTICE: Amazon Online Confirmation - User Agreement - Abusing Amazon

So, which is it? Am I ordering stuff, or getting kicked off for abusing the service? Make up your mind! According to the body of the email, I was ordering stuff...which should have been delivered eight months ago.

Oh, and if it wasn't addressed to eight other people besides me, that'd increase the verisimilitude of the notice as well. I highly doubt that Amazon sends out mass emails, even if people do happen to order the exact same widgets at the exact same time.

I also have my doubts that Amazon uses MSN as their mail server.

In other words:

YOU FAIL. And have just opened yourself up for mockitude on LiveJournal. Here's your fifteen minutes.

---

I just finished naominovik's latest Temeraire book, Empire of Ivory. And all I have to say is AUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHH. That is not an ending, people. That is an unfair cliffhanger of monstrous proportions.

Bound to be some new scam or other, but I now have four emails between two inboxes "verifying my membership" for websites I never signed up on, wanting me to click a link. All it is, though, is an IP number...and they're different for each one:

24.95.60.212 -- Web Connects (Road Runner HoldCo LLC, in Herndon, VA)
24.95.129.106 -- Recipes Galore (Road Runner HoldCo LLC, in Herndon, VA)
66.189.102.11 -- Cat Lovers (Charter Communications)
69.14.171.116 -- Dog Lovers (WideOpenWest LLC, based in Michigan)

I did WhoIs IP searches and found out the info in parentheses; anyone out there want to dig any deeper? Seems like a sneaky way to infect someone's machine with a virus...

I just got an email in the account that's been moribund for three days.

And it's a scam email from Citibank, telling me that it's urgent that I click on the link and verify my information or my account might *gasp* be closed!

Yeah. I don't bank with Citibank.

FAIL.

Hopefully that means that my email is unclogged. They're moving servers. I may email *that one place* and tell them to please email me at the gmail account, since I really don't have any confidence in my ISP that they'll handle the move in a prompt and competent manner.

In other news, I'm reading Bitterwood, by James Maxey. It's about a war between humans and the dragons that enslave them. The worldbuilding is rich, the characters engaging, the story interesting.

Just one problem.

It's reins, people, when you're discussing the things that riders use on horses and ox-dogs. Not reigns. And they make this error every single time. I kid you not.

My eBay account will be suspended if I don't click on this oh-so-important link in this email and update my information!!! Whatever shall I do???

Well, obviously, I'm not going to click on the link. BECAUSE I'M NOT STUPID, KTHXDIE.

What makes this particular phishing attempt worthy of an LJ post, when I get about three of them a day? This gem at the bottom:

Please do not reply to this e-mail as this is only a notification. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
Amazon.com treats your personal information with the utmost care, and our Privacy Policy is designed to protect you and your information.
Copyright © 2007 eBay.com All Rights Reserved.

Tch. Very careless, people. Try harder if you want to steal my information.

I wasn't going to post about the first one...until I got the second one. Two in one day, worthy of mockage, is just too good to pass up. Not only are these people morons, but they apparently think I am too.

So, the first one was in my Yahoo mail spambox. I get a lot of these. This gem purported to be from "Credit Union National Association." Understand that I don't have an account in any credit unions whatsoever, so their lame attempt to get my information is going to be fruitless anyway. It was a typical email threatening to "restrict" my account if I didn't click their fake link and input everything they need to steal my identity kthxDIE, but it veered off into Bwahaha-territory with this:

Your credit card on file with CUNA:
Card number: XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX (Not shown for security purposes) Expiration date: XX/XX

Um, WHAT? You're going to not show the cc info for security purposes? WHY have that line in there at all, then? And I copied and pasted that verbatim; everything was X-ed out like that. Dumbasses.

The next one was supposedly from eBay. Dudes, I know what a real email from eBay looks like, and this ain't it. Try harder, k? What made this one post-worthy were the following misspellings:

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but to temporaly suspend your account.

The first misspelling was bad enough. But the second? So...they have a time machine? They're going to go back or forward in the time-space continuum and restrict my account access? What a neat and shiny toy! Or perhaps they're using some sort of mind control thing where they go through the temporal lobe of my brain and prevent me from accessing the account that way.

Good grief, people. Of course, the fact that some folks actually fall for this crap makes me fear for the future of humanity.