"Tony Raven" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Pete Biggs wrote:
> > I've just received an email asking me to "verify" my
> > "personal information" because "you or someone else had
> > used your identity to
make
> > false purchases on eBay...".
> >
>
> This is one of the most worrying threads I've read in a
> long time.
...
That's certainly true.
...
> This is a well known and well publicised scam and yet
> there was a lot of uncertainty in the replies initially as
> to whether it was real or not -
...
Er, not quite.
< quote >
At 11.02 am "Dr Curious" <
[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
Unless the email was posted directly to you as Pete Biggs,
rather than just "member" and referred to your Ebay name
then its a hoax.
In other words unless the email contains information which
only you and Ebay know - or which soemone has gone to a lot
of trouble to find out - or maybe a previous customer might
know, then its a hoax.
If it contains generalised rubbish - dear Ebay member - and
nothing specific then its a hoax.
</quote>
No uncertainty there, I'd have said.
...
> and this from an internet savvy group. No wonder the scam
> works so well in the general population.
...
No Tony. Only among a group of self regarding techies who
seem to imagine that an intimate knowledge of such things as
the distinction between domain names and web adresses is the
sole criterion of superior intelligence. To witness a gaggle
of these nauseatingly condescending and arrogant experts
seeking to congratulate each other as they take in turns to
heap odium on anyone who shows themselves to be in any way
unfamiliar with the topic is truly something. The boasting
and overweening arrogance this can engender is truly a sight
for sore eyes.
To say nothing of the efforts of late comers such as Mr
Senior. Whose criticisms were addressed solely at the
content of a quasi academic website, parts of which I
merely quoted without endorsing or commenting on in any
way. And who thus only succeeded in making a complete fool
of himself in the process. To say nothing of Mr Kahn, who
seemingly did likewise.
The fact that people once given any chance to show off their
technical expertise in respect of trivial detail should at
the same time show themselves be singularly lacking in
ordinary common sense - street smarts to use the more
popular phrase - comes as no great surprise to me
personally, or probably to many others. Neither does the
fact that they quite possibly demonstrate a deal less common
sense on such occasions than does the general population,
over whom they might wish to claim superiority.
Basically, all such tecchie threads have a grim
inevitability about them. The seeming obsession with trivia,
the air of nauseating condescension, the boasting, combined
with what would be otherwise be laughable blindness to the
bigger picture. The actual problem seeking to be addressed.
...
>
> Any e-mail that asks you to go to a website and confirm
> your details is very highly suspect. Do not fall for it.
...
Any email that doesn't contain specific information about
the recipient personally will most likely be a hoax. Either
that, or if the senders are sufficiently inept not to
realise that in order to convince the recipient of any email
of its genuineness, it's necessary to include such
information, then you're probably better off not giving them
your business in the first place.
Lets just see the techies get stuck into that last
paragraph, shall we ?
No. I think not somehow.
...
>
> You can fool some of the people all of the time and those
> are the ones they're after.
>
> Tony
Curious
