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Scam Victims - brad's life — LiveJournal [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
Brad Fitzpatrick

[ website | bradfitz.com ]
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Scam Victims [Dec. 20th, 2002|02:09 pm]
Brad Fitzpatrick
Received-from: some.open.relay.net
From: reputablecompany@hotmail.com
Subject: Warning: Account Expiration!

Dear Internet User,

This is Some Reputable Company. We seem to have lost all your records. Or, uh, we'll be expiring your account since you haven't used it recently enough.

Please email reputablecompany@hotmail.com and provide us with the following info:

Name
Social Security Number
Mailing Address
Credit Card Numbers

You have 7 days to do this, or your account will be permanently disabled.

Thank you,
Reputable Company Account Team
Why do so many people fall victim to this shit? Think, people, think!

I don't deal with it directly, but I heard a couple dozen LiveJournal users sent their PayPal information off to some third party. Now their credit card numbers are being used left and right by the scammers (on LJ), and we're having to deal with it all.

*sigh*
LinkReply

Comments:
[User Picture]From: supersat
2002-12-20 02:22 pm (UTC)
Yet another reason to ditch PayPal ASAP. ;)
(Reply) (Thread)
[User Picture]From: tydel
2002-12-20 02:37 pm (UTC)
Then they just re-do the scam pretending to be LiveJournal. *sigh*

Stupid scams will work on stupid users until users become un-stupid ;)
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
[User Picture]From: supersat
2002-12-20 02:39 pm (UTC)

Re:

LiveJournal isn't as high-profile as PayPal. Sure, people will try, but I think people would try PayPal scams more.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
(Deleted comment)
[User Picture]From: supersat
2002-12-20 02:42 pm (UTC)

Re:

See my reply to ty. Furthermore, attackers wouldn't have access to your credit card info just by giving away your username/password. With PayPal, you give your entire bank account away with your username/password.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
[User Picture]From: angelicdestiny
2002-12-20 02:24 pm (UTC)
cause so many people are fuckin idiots. duh.
(Reply) (Thread)
[User Picture]From: scsi
2002-12-20 02:55 pm (UTC)
Internet Darwinism.. I love it!
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[User Picture]From: sandy
2002-12-20 04:38 pm (UTC)

Little mistake in the telling

They are not LJ users that did this. It is random people who filled out this form, and now the crooks are paying for LJ accounts with the stolen information. Boy has this been fun, dealing with people who want to know what LJ is. One guy did not want our newspaper, so he wanted his money back. I had to tell him to go close all of his accounts and open new ones, I do not think he understood.

(Reply) (Thread)
[User Picture]From: dpb
2002-12-20 04:43 pm (UTC)

Re: Little mistake in the telling

I was just going to ask that exact info you gave...

That is a pain!
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
[User Picture]From: sandy
2002-12-20 04:50 pm (UTC)

Re: Little mistake in the telling

I did not include that we have been refunding those that contact us. Those that go through the reputable company, has to go through an investigation, and has been told to send in a notarized copy of some letter they write.
(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
[User Picture]From: ferrell
2002-12-20 05:16 pm (UTC)
off the record, if you happened to give me that email address (assuming it really is an @hotmail.com email address) it might magically get disabled...
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[User Picture]From: brad
2002-12-20 05:55 pm (UTC)
I instinctively deleted the email when I got it, so I don't remember the return address. I just remember it was bogus.

I'm sure it's been shut down already by now. The point is: we know the real person that sent it out, so we want them arrested. :-)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
From: man_vs_wild
2002-12-20 05:21 pm (UTC)
It's beyond me why anyone who is at least savy enough to use the internet would fall for any scam. Would they give their personal information to someone who came to their door asking for it? No. Well, scratch that, some might. lol

Thanks for all you do Brad! Wishing you and your a wonderful holiday season.
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From: compwiz
2002-12-23 06:14 pm (UTC)
You'd be surprised at the ratio of people that actually fall into it. A bunch of years back, I tried basically the same.. umm.. "experiment" on AOL, and something like 20% of the people e-mailed actually responded with their full credit card info and address. A much better excuse would have been "your credit card has expired", since nobody actually remembers how long ago they gave their credit card number to be billed.
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