A New Low in SPAM/Phishing/Spoofing

February 10, 2014

File under “You can never be too careful.”

I found the following email in my SPAM folder this morning:

eubanks

Gotta love Gmail for recognizing the scam; although I’m not sure I would consider a funeral notification to contain “content that’s typically used in spam messages.”

Even if the email had appeared in my inbox, it would have been suspect for several reasons (in no particular order):

  1. The notice neglects to name the deceased.
  2. Death is hardly an “unprecedented event”.
  3. The entire message is horribly written and <Ugh!> “friends life” should be written in the possessive: “friend’s life”.
  4. The return email addy <[email protected]>  is a Turkish email IP.
  5. The message contains no printed contact information – phone number, physical address, website.
  6. The embedded link … well, you get the picture –

Before I even hovered over the link to read the URL (Do I need to remind you that you should NEVER click on a URL until you have verified its authenticity???), I Googled ‘Eubank Funeral Homes’. They are a legitimate operation based in my home state of Texas. I clicked on their website to find this notice:

eubank2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
What sort of sick, twisted, miscreant comes up with the idea to prey on our sympathies like this?

Comments are closed.