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offers
This page comments on some of the offers made by spammers.
It covers -
introduction
The following page indicates that the type and volume
of spam received varies considerably over time, depending
on factors such as the efficiency of filtering mechanisms
(eg lists maintained by most ISPs), whether an email address
has been published and whether a scammer has successfully
pumped-&-dumped a penny dreadful.
It is clear that some naive businesses and other organisations
are unaware that unsolicited bulk messaging may be resented
(so much so that the sender's profile is eroded) and may
be illegal. Those organisations may indeed be offering
legitimate products, services and opportunities: they
are inept, rather than iniquitous.
Others, however, invite the recipient to become complicit
in an illegality (eg buy unlicensed software, engage in
money laundering) or make offers that are indeed too good
to be true, with the consumer having little recourse when
a product is not as described, does not arrive as promised
or is unsupported by a meaningful dispute resolution mechanism.
Some, such as phishing exercises where the sender invites
unaware consumers to surrender the keys to their accounts,
are directly fraudulent.
Email management service CipherTrust claimed in 2006 that
spam promoting pornography is 280 times more likely to
be clicked than messages advertising pharmaceuticals,
with the third most successful spam being that advertising
Rolex watches (supposedly 0.0075 percent score a click).
The following paragraphs comment on particular categories
of spam that we have encountered.
A more detailed note on the '419' or 'Nigerian' scam is
here.
software
Spam offers of proprietary software (in particular the
dominant wordprocessing, spreadsheet and nonprofessional
graphics packages) are common, typically priced at 5%
to 10% of what the consumer would find in the shops.
Messages often feature 'explanations' such as -
Why
so cheap? All the software is OEM - Meaning that you
don't get the box and the manual with your software.
All you will receive is the actual software and your
unique registration code. All the software is in the
English language for PC. Our offers are unbeatable and
we always update our prices to make sure we provide
you with the best possible offers.
Hurry up and place your order, because our supplies
are limited.
In fact supplies are limitless because the software is
pirated rather than authorised
by Microsoft, Adobe, Corel or a similar copyright owner.
It is not OEM (ie licenced to a hardware manufacturer),
is not legitimate and is not supported by the software
company.
It may, indeed, not be as described: consumers recurrently
complain to government agencies (or, more loudly, to each
other in online fora) that having provided their credit
card details they discovered that the code being downloaded
from the spammer's server was partial, defective or simply
wrong ... and that the vendor was not there to deal with
their unhappiness.
The spammers encourage recipients to step right up and
buy because their server may not be at the address for
very long before it is moved along to evade lawyers and
officials. The number of credit cards that are compromised
through purchases of illegal software from servers in
Russia and other locations is unknown: it is naive for
consumers to believe that they can trust software thieves
to sell them stolen code and not exploit their cards.
watches, birches and other bling
Although statistics are uncertain it is probable that
much of the online population has received recurrent offers
of 'unique timepieces' and other bling.
Some of those messages purport to offer genuine designer
brands at steep discounts, eg the '$50 Rolex'. Others
offer lookalike versions.
Possessing such items is not illegal. However the maker
and vendor of counterfeits
typically breach the trademarks
of the original manufacturers. Will you get what you asked
for in responding to offer? Judging by complaints made
to consumer protection agencies and in newsgroups the
answer is no: items are paid for but do not arrive, items
arrive but are not as described, credit card details are
misused by identity thieves.
Some industry studies of fake watches suggest that the
average life span is under three years.
Spam offers of watches - aka "eloquent watchwear
pieces" - appear to be particularly popular because
manufacturing and distribution costs are low (eg it is
cheaper to ship faux Omega timepieces than fake Vuitton
suitcases) and because a sufficiently large number of
consumers are prepared to buy such items sight unseen.
Arguably it is also because spammers in emerging economies
are reflecting local perceptions of what is desirable,
with a watch providing a more affordable and visible sign
of distinction - genuine or otherwise - than a BMW.
One vendor of "genuine Rolex replicas" thus
confides -
a
rolex very often costs too much money for the average
person, that is why they want a GENUINE Swiss-Made replica,
which costs only 1/100 to 1/300 of the actual watch.
A high-end rolex shows wealth, power and status. Yet,
very often people who trying to get ahead need to give
the appearance that they have achieved wealth, power
and status. That is when replica watch is inexpensive
and effective solution. It gives impression you are
wearing the genuine Rolex while you are atending posh
cocktail party or signifigant business meeting. [sic]
Another boasts "Replica Classic watches are not fake
they are just not real".
Other types of bling are promoted online. Our favourite
in 2005 concerned supposed handicrafts from Tomsk -
Family
and friends will speak of your gift throughout the night,
compliments and thanks will fly in your direction the
entire evening, and the dinner's hosts will remain thinking
of you for years to come.
No,
we are not talking about food poisoning ...
A
gift such as this could be none other than the one-of-a-kind
hand-carved heart boxes created in only one place on
earth, the small rural city of Tomsk, located in Siberia.
The Siberian White Birch produces a light colored and
soft wood that gives craftsmen the ability to hand-carve
intricate details in these ornaments and create works
of art that are smooth to the touch and extraordinarily
functional.
As
with the deep discount software from Vladivostok or Bucharest,
will you get what you are expecting. Do the boxes indeed
exist? Perhaps what you will remain thinking about "for
years to come" is how your credit card came to be
used to pay the domain name resistration for a child porn
site?
a new you
Some consumers are obviously ignoring the heart boxes
and buying brandname or generic performance aids instead.
The market appears to be driven by a mix of embarrassment
(it is common to see claims that under 10% of 'disfunctional'
men seek the aid of their GP and family pharmacist), interest
in deep-discount meds and perceptions that supplies are
tight.
Estimated global sales in 2005 of Viagra and competing
formulations such as Cialis, Vivanza and Levitra were
US$2.5 billion (with Viagra accounting for US$1.68 billion
globally and around $26 million in Australia), around
0.5% of total spending on prescription pharmaceuticals.
Viagra came on the market in May 1998, with global sales
reaching US$1 billion in 1999 amid forecasts by Wall Street
analysts that sales would continue to soar. (In 1998 for
example Morgan Stanley predicted sales would amount to
US$2.6 billion in 2000; Gruntal's crystal ball saw US$4.5
billion by 2004.) In the US doctors prescribe impotence
drugs about 17 million times a year, to fewer than five
million men. That compares with around 100 million prescriptions
for antidepressants and 40 million for osteoporosis. It
is unclear whether reported declines in the sale of exotica
such as powedered reindeer antlers, sea cucumbers, geckos,
tiger and rhinoceros gonads and green sea turtle eggs
are attributable to better living through modern chemicals
(with, for example, debate about arguments by scholar
William von Hippel PDF).
Are consumers - whether thrill seeking 20-something party
animals or 60-something US males who use the drug twice
a month - getting what they expect.
Some enforcement action by Pfixer, Eli Lilly and associates
in response to spam offers suggests that some consumers
are not getting anything at all or are receiving understrength
medications. Others are getting legitimate stock that
"fell off the back of the truck" or Indian generic
versions of patented medications, with or without abuse
of trademarks and copyrights.
In 2004 Dr Nicola Wilson of the University of London told
the British Pharmaceutical Conference that, based on detailed
sampling, around half of all spam Viagra might be fake.
Sufficient people are undeterred to make spamming worthwhile.
In 2003 the UK Customs Service recorded seizures of around
30,000 counterfeit Viagra tablets entering the country
through the post; by late
2004 the US government was reporting estimates that over
20 million shipments were coming through the mail that
year.
discount meds and potions
There are similar questions about spam offers of over-the-counter
and prescription medications for arthritis, cancer, aging,
high blood pressure, wrinkles, multiple sclerosis, fatigue,
depression or simply unwanted avoirdupois.
As Alexandra George notes in the 2003 E-Shopping for
Fakes: The Internet Business in Trademark Counterfeits
(PDF)
some consumers are apparently attracted by convenience,
others by perceived low prices or the lack of restrictions
on dispensing in an environment where the vendor's only
concern is whether the consumer's credit card is healthy
and there is no recognition of problems with self-medication.
The extent of buying in response to spam offers is unclear;
many statements from industry and government about the
US market for example conflate buying from 'Canadian'
e-pharmacy sites with purchases in response to spam.
Elsewhere we have noted concerns about fake
drugs - including horrors such as the anti-inflammatory
that featured boric acid, floor polish and yellow paint
or the no-name 'muscle tonic' that include horse steroids
and diethylene glycol. Redress from an offshore spam pharmacy
selling unlicensed knockoffs is problematical. Difficulties
can be compounded by the legal status of purchases, since
many nations prohibit unauthorised imports of OTC drugs
given concerns regarding intellectual property and public
health.
The extent to which consumers are receiving and responding
to offers of 'unorthodox' medications - including herbal
remedies, exotic animal extracts and miscellaneous elixirs
- is unclear. A 2003 offer of "radium pills"
struck us as too redolent of 1920s snake oil patent medicine
sales.
New Zealand and Australian Customs officials have publicised
seizure of imports of Hoodia, hyped as a dieting aid but
derived from a cactus-like plant protected under the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species. Hoodia could
only be legally imported and traded with certification
under that Convention: there is no dispensation for people
who respond to 'miraculous' offers online.
phishing
Phishers typically send an email that claims to be from
a legitimate entitity such as a bank or eBay and that
advises that the consumer's account details have been
compromised or should be updated for improved security.
The link in that email goes to a site that features the
appropriate logo (and may even feature correct trustmarks)
but is in fact bogus. The victim thereupon enters the
account information, giving the phisher what is needed
to loot the account and, often, to engage in broader identity
theft.
Studies of phishing, such as the 2006 Why Phishing
Works (PDF)
by Rachna Dhamija & Marti Hearst, are considered in
more detail elsewhere on this site.
lotteries
Spam claiming that the recipient has won the lottery gives
you an opportunity to play identity theft roulette where
the house always wins.
The recipient - who typically has not entered the lottery
(and in may cases has never heard of the lottery) - is
invited to contact a claims agent to collect the loot,
receiving a claim form that will supposedly verify the
recipient's identity. Verification involves provision
of full personal details and a copy of the driver's license
or passport. That provides the scammers with enough data
for identity theft.
Alas, the scam generally does not stop there. Consumers
who provide the information generally receive an email
indicating that the winnings can be transferred to their
bank account, collected in person or placed in a new account
with a phony bank. Those who ask for a transfer then receive
advice that they need to pay upfront fees - 419 style
- for processing, taxes or even legal fees and insurance.
Some of the more credulous victims, persuaded that their
new millions will be safer in an offshore account unknown
to tax officials, take up the scammers' generous advice
about opening a new account. That account typically involves
the recipient transferring money to that 'bank' as an
opening deposit, which is course never seen again.
penny dreadfuls
Speculators and scammers have preyed on the greed, ignorance
or gullibility of small investors since the emergence
of financial exchanges. Prior to the net regulatory agencies
grappled with phenomena such as telephone boiler rooms,
placement of 'tips' in the press, whispering campaigns
and newsletters that encouraged consumers to believe a
stock was about to increase in value. Having pumped up
prices through such promotion figures such as Joseph Kennedy
(eminence grise behind JFK and his brothers) dumped their
interests through sale to naive investors.
That has continued online. The US SEC comments
Pump
and dump schemes often occur on the Internet where it
is common to see messages posted that urge readers to
buy a stock quickly or to sell before the price goes
down, or a telemarketer will call using the same sort
of pitch. Often the promoters will claim to have "inside"
information about an impending development or to use
an "infallible" combination of economic and
stock market data to pick stocks. In reality, they may
be company insiders or paid promoters who stand to gain
by selling their shares after the stock price is "pumped"
up by the buying frenzy they create. Once these fraudsters
"dump" their shares and stop hyping the stock,
the price typically falls, and investors lose their
money.
Stock
spam often emanates from third parties seeking to manipulate
the target company's share price: that company may not
be responsible for the spam in any way. It typically features
boilerplate such as
All
information provided within this email pertaining
to investing, stocks, securities must be understood
as information provided and not investment advice. [Spammer]
advises all readers and subscribers to seek advice from
a registered professional securities representative
before deciding to trade in stocks featured within this
email. None of the material within this report shall
be construed as any kind of investment advice [and thereby
expose the spammer to liability under US securities
legislation]. Please have in mind that the interpretation
of the writer of this newsletter about the news published
by the company does not represent the company official
statement and in fact may differ from the real meaning
of what the news release meant to say.
Put
simply, the information is worthless: user beware!
Prosecutions of stock spammers have taken place. One example
is SEC v. Jeffery Steven Stone, et al (SDNY,
2006), in which the US Securities & Exchange Commission
charged
a former felon Jeffery Stone and his wife with orchestrating
a fraud that featured spam and allowed them to pocket
over US$1 million.
Rainer Böhme & Thorsten Holz's 2006 paper
The Effect of Stock Spam on Financial Markets
considers 391 shares promoted by spammers from 2004 to
2006, with fluctuation of over 13% after spamming relative
to unspammed peers. Joshua Cyr
reported in 2006 that a notional investment of US$70,987
on the basis of soam tips in mid 2005 would be worth US$24,325
a year later. There is a more searching analysis in Spam
Works: Evidence From Stock Touts and Corresponding Market
Activity, a 2006 paper
by Laura Frieder & Jonathan Zittrain.
An account by a boiler room operator is provided in Jordan
Belfort's The Wolf of Wall Street (New York:
Hachette 2007). Belfort pumped & dumped stocks to
thousands of unsuspecting investors via the Stratton Oakmont
brokerage in the 1990s, with investors losing at least
US$250 million. He served only two years of a four year
prison sentence for fraud and money laundering, with Stratton
Oakmont victims receiving a fraction of the US$110 million
restitution ordered by the court.
a degree in a day
Some spam offers instant certification for a credentialist
society. We particularly like invitations to gain a back-dated
'doctorate' within two weeks from, oops, an unaccredited
'institution'
that has less prestige than a cereal packet. Why worry
that the diploma mill does not even possess a website,
when certification is a matter of ...
No
required tests, classes, books, or interviews. No one
is turned down. Confidentiality assured. CALL NOW to
receive your diploma within days!!!
and
you are reassured that critics
are people who have frittered away years in classrooms
absorbing blindly and thoughtlessly second hand information
in a theoretical environment completely removed from
real life, and for what? In order to acquire the right
to use the same Title or post-nominal letters that you
can legally acquire in a matter of days for the price
a meal in a decent restaurant.
In
2004 Pennsylvania used state consumer protection legislation
in litigation against spammers who offered a PhD or MBA
within 72 hours, somewhat quicker than the traditional
14 day turnaround.
We have discussed diploma
mills in a complementary note, along with an exploration
of 'resume massaging'
and resume verification
services.
jobs in the laundry business
Other spam is more sinister, as supposed offers of employment
are in fact invitations to engage in money laundering
for Eastern European mafiosi.
We are particularly impressed by one from "Chickago"
that invites the recipient to "Work in the big foreign
company" - so big of course that it has no physical
address - and recurrent offers from the "Human Recourses
departament" [sic] of Ukrainian Folk Instruments
Sales PE, supposedly doing major business in Australia
selling instruments with "gold strings or inlaid
with diamonds and rubies".
Wdinvestz.com, supposedly based in Moldova, eschews the
diamonds in favour of promises of amazing rewards
1.
10 days you will get paid 980% DAILY
2. You can invest amount of money for 15 days and get
1200% after 15 days.
3. You can invest amount of money for 30 days and get
1800% after 30 days
Scepticism about an Eastern European Ponzi scheme would
not be reduced by email from "Suffocate O. Uncensored"
and other colleagues at wdinvestz.com and worldinzone.com.
Sundry enterprises, supposedly domiciled in Lithuania
or Estonia, explain that
The
international money transfer tax for legal entities
(companies) is 35%, whereas for the individual it is
only 3%. We need agents to receive payment for our products
(by electronic money transfer) and to resend the money
to us. This way we will save money because of tax decreasing.
Some offers of jobs are marvellously direct. One for example
asks the recipient to provide
Your
Name:
Your Age:
Your Country:
Your City:
Your Street:
Your Phone number:
Your Email:
Your Current Occupation:
Your SSN:
We
are surprised that you are not asked for the family pet's
name as well.
Ignoring the lie about the 35% "international money
transfer tax", it is useful to remember that legitimate
businesses do not rely on private accounts in the name
of unrelated individuals for processing payments from
their customers. They similarly do not use private individuals
to receive and remail correspondence and parcels. They
do not use fictitious email names such as 'Blister Q Portly'
and send messages to people at random. They do not pay
individuals 5% for international money transfers when
such transfers are available from banks for a small flat
fee and when legitimate businesses can establish accounts
in offshore banks.
crystal balls and garlic
Faith healers, psychics, specialists in the removal of
curses and other practitioners of the 'black arts' (or
merely exploiters of credulity) have migrated online.
Use of the net and other electronic networks by individual
scammers and by businesses is explored here.
next page
(spam in the attention economy)
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