So this is interesting spam.

I got this same thing last week. Except it wasn't the usual crappy translation. I believe they threatened to share a split screen video of me "doing nasty things" while also showing the "nasty things I was watching" or something like that.
 
It’s sad, but these scams do work on people. I’ve seen this exact one pop up on Reddit‘s r/legaladvice sub a few times now. The last time the guy was paying them and they kept asking for more money.

My mom fell for the social security scammers a few weeks ago. For reasons unknown to me, my mother has two cellphones and while driving to Walmart to buy a gift card for these scammers, she called me up to tell me what was happening. I told her to hang up with the scammers because the federal government is not going to request you pay them via Walmart gift card. It still took me a couple minutes to make her believe me. Suffice to say, she’s not the brightest bulb in the box (if you knew her, you wouldn’t think this were mean to say, trust me). I don’t know how much info she gave them, but being that she was on the phone with them for nearly an hour before calling me, she probably gave them enough that they’ll be calling back with another scam sooner than later.
 
Dr. Dipwad said:
Yep, everybody gets those.

It's complete horses*** from end-to-end. Normally they send it to you "from your own e-mail address," using forged headers. Then they claim that they achieved this script-kiddie feat by "figuring out your e-mail password, so you see, we're in complete control of your life, muahahahahaha!"

And it always includes the wink-wink, nudge-nudge line about capturing you on your webcam while you're looking at porn. I guess they figure that if they send this e-mail to 100K people, it's a safe bet a lot of them have been doing that...but it's a bit of a giveaway if you know you haven't. (Or if, like @mistermikev, you don't have a webcam.)

Just ignore it.
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def should have asked to see the video... perhaps he has one of my wife and it was a simple mixup. would really have been an ace up my sleeve...
 
Actually I almost fell for one of the phone call spammers a few years back. I had just come back to work after having a bout with pneumonia and had to work several 20 hour days which made me even sicker. I just got home from one of those shifts at about 7AM from working all night in a tunnel (the BART Transbay Tube) and I get one of those calls saying it's the IRS and I had a judgement against me or whatever the line is. I was totally fatigued and sick and fell for it for about a minute, then I caught myself before I started giving him info. It was one of those guys with a thick Indian accent. I laid into him cussing and screaming until he hung up then I called IRS and turned in the phone number.

So when you're young and sprite, you think it'll never happen to you, but when you get old and wore out, you get caught off guard sometimes. Gotta take care of yourself. And put the tape on the little camera, lol!
 
Randy4Guitars said:
Actually I almost fell for one of the phone call spammers a few years back. I had just come back to work after having a bout with pneumonia and had to work several 20 hour days which made me even sicker. I just got home from one of those shifts at about 7AM from working all night in a tunnel (the BART Transbay Tube) and I get one of those calls saying it's the IRS and I had a judgement against me or whatever the line is. I was totally fatigued and sick and fell for it for about a minute, then I caught myself before I started giving him info. It was one of those guys with a thick Indian accent. I laid into him cussing and screaming until he hung up then I called IRS and turned in the phone number.

So when you're young and sprite, you think it'll never happen to you, but when you get old and wore out, you get caught off guard sometimes. Gotta take care of yourself. And put the tape on the little camera, lol!
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if I get a call from a telemarketer.. I like to play a little game I call "let me find my wallet" where I go looking for my wallet to give them all my financial info... I set the phone down and do something else... checking back every so often to see if they are still there and say "you know what I think I might have left it in my car... hang on while I go check".
 
I got one last month, and the caller ID said JM Kingston. ( I didn't realize that meant Kingston, Jamaica at the time), and the caller told me I had won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes that I had won $5,000 per week for life AND a brand new Mercedes! He had my wife's and my name and our address. I was immediately skeptical, but I played along for a while, and when he asked me why I didn't seem so excited, I explained that I hadn't ever won anything, and I was still in shock.
He continued on, and finally he go to the point I was waiting for - he asked me to wire him Money via Western Union. When I asked what for, he said it was to pay for the shipping of the car. I promptly pointed out that I now knew he was a criminal and a scammer, and I wished he would come to a bad end for knowingly taking advantage of people, and I hung up.
I didn't know my wife had been listening in on another phone, and then he called back. She answered, and he told her to "tell your husband to go to hell."
Then she lit into him with a profane rant that I had never heard from her before in 31 years of marriage! I was actually shocked (and had to ask her what all those words meant! LOL!)
Then he kept calling back, and said awful sexual things to her and whatnot, and probably called about 20 times. Now, I had to go to band rehearsal, so I disconnected the phone and told her not to plugin back in until I got back, and I will report the number, etc., and left.
So what did she do? She immediately plugged the darn phone back in when I left the house, he calls back, tells her he has our home address, which he did, and said he was going to kill her! I'm not even 10 blocks away from home, and she calls me, crying, and that I have to come home right away.
I told her no, and to unplug the phone, and I will look it up when I get back. (Her crises only seem to come up when I have band rehearsal)
2 hours later, I'm back, look up the area code, and found out it was from Jamaica. I report it to the authorities, who can do nothing about it, and then I ordered and phone blocker to appease her. (By the way, the phone blocker stopped working after 3 weeks, it was keeping the line open, like the phone being off the hook, so I returned it. I did research, and they are all built so cheaply, they all seem to do this eventually)
I told her if this guy is a known criminal, it would be very unlikely he would be able to get a visa to travel to the USA.
I hate scammers!
 
mistermikev said:
if I get a call from a telemarketer.. I like to play a little game I call "let me find my wallet" where I go looking for my wallet to give them all my financial info... I set the phone down and do something else... checking back every so often to see if they are still there and say "you know what I think I might have left it in my car... hang on while I go check".
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Well done.

Y'know, the thing about telemarketers and cold-call con-men is that they know their frauds will never result in a prosecution, let alone a conviction. There is a certain sense of arrogance, as a result: They think they can prey on others with impunity.

Sometimes I think that THIS is what I'd want real-life superheroes/masked-vigilantes for.

Sure, I guess you want Iron Man around if Chitauri armies invade New York riding giant space-whales. Still, after a certain point you'd think the armed forces could adjust tactics to handle that problem.

But sometimes I think what we really need is someone like Rorschach from The Watchmen, except that the main thing that morally outrages him is those grifters who call up grandmothers and bilk them out of all their retirement savings. Oh, and all the calls to my cell-phone contacting me about "my car's extended warranty" or claiming they're from "cardholder services." If I answer one of those calls, I want there to be a nonzero chance that the con-man's spiel is suddenly interrupted by a crash, some terrified screaming trailing away into silence, and then a dial-tone.

I suppose I should distinguish between mere telemarketers and serious con-men. So I wouldn't sic Rorschach on the former. It would be sufficient if they were cursed to step in dog-droppings every day for the rest of their lives. But the real con-men should get the Rorschach treatment. So should the guy who threatened @rushfan's wife.

Okay, sorry for the ferocity. Low blood-sugar I presume. Time for a snack.
 
I was a telemarketer at one point. not an easy job... if you do it legit you are probably going to be met with more than rejection... and you have to have thick skin to do it... so in a sense they make the perfect victims. Most of them aren't scammers... and are just good peeps... that's why I treat them so nice. My father, had a very loud whistle next to the phone for just such occasions. that's not really nice as you could damage someone's hearing.

afa 'what we need' I watched a ted talks a while back about developing artificial intelligence to answer the phone specifically when telemarketers called. They were doing essentially what I was doing... the would engage at silences and just say things like "yup" and "hmm". The idea of the programming was that if we had enough of these listeners setup... and they wasted enough of the telemarketing employees time... telemarketing would become less profitable... and perhaps not even practical. I would think nowadays, given caller id... we're just about there anyway.
 
mistermikev said:
I was a telemarketer at one point. not an easy job... if you do it legit you are probably going to be met with more than rejection... and you have to have thick skin to do it... so in a sense they make the perfect victims. Most of them aren't scammers... and are just good peeps... that's why I treat them so nice.
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Well, and that's the reason why I made that distinction. I wouldn't have sic-ed Rorschach on you. :)

But I will say that I have both my phones (cell and land-line) are on the Do Not Call list. By law, I shouldn't be getting telemarketers on either one. But I get them on my cell phone thrice a week. And of course the phone number is always set to something in my own area code, so that even if the call is coming from Nigeria, it looks like it plausibly could be a local friend whose new number isn't yet in my phone book. The caller ID, where present, is generally something deceptive, also.

It is that willingness of the robo-call firms to ignore the law and be sneaky (in pursuit of wasting my time!) that makes me call down Formal Maledictions of Daily Dog Poop upon them.
 
I pretty much never answer if it's not a number in my contacts. If it's a legit business call or a friend whose number I don't have they'll leave a msg.
 
Dr. Dipwad said:
Well, and that's the reason why I made that distinction. I wouldn't have sic-ed Rorschach on you. :)

But I will say that I have both my phones (cell and land-line) are on the Do Not Call list. By law, I shouldn't be getting telemarketers on either one. But I get them on my cell phone thrice a week. And of course the phone number is always set to something in my own area code, so that even if the call is coming from Nigeria, it looks like it plausibly could be a local friend whose new number isn't yet in my phone book. The caller ID, where present, is generally something deceptive, also.

It is that willingness of the robo-call firms to ignore the law and be sneaky (in pursuit of wasting my time!) that makes me call down Formal Maledictions of Daily Dog Poop upon them.
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my cell has become unanswerable. tho I haven't updated my monster/dice/etc resume in 2 years... I still get 3 headhunters a week. on top of that, had a doctor visit where they were gonna ultrasound my liver - got there and they are like "well the ultrasound tech isn't here on saturdays" and I was like "not paying the copay"... so bill collector for that calls constantly over $35 I will not pay. then the fine folks at nissan or honda wanting me to trade my car in. then political surveys. and then scammers, telemarketers, family - who needs that (hehe). haven't turned my ringer off of silent for ages.
 
I haven't seen one of the "watching porn" blackmail emails in a while, but for several months I was getting 4 or 5 every week. The scams do seem to come in cycles, though.

mistermikev said:
if I get a call from a telemarketer.. I like to play a little game I call "let me find my wallet" where I go looking for my wallet to give them all my financial info... I set the phone down and do something else... checking back every so often to see if they are still there and say "you know what I think I might have left it in my car... hang on while I go check".
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The drummer in my band has made a hobby out of stringing along Craigslist scammers. He has a dozen or so "certified checks" from people who've paid $200 for his $100 "item" that their "agent" will come pick up. When they tell him to send the extra money back to them via Western Union Moneygram, he acts like he's never heard of such a thing. "You can just go to Walmart to get one at the Service Desk." "Walmart? Hell, I never go to that place!" "OK, you can get Target gift cards." "Gift carts? What do you put in a gift cart?" And on and on for weeks on end.
 
TG3K said:
I haven't seen one of the "watching porn" blackmail emails in a while, but for several months I was getting 4 or 5 every week. The scams do seem to come in cycles, though.


The drummer in my band has made a hobby out of stringing along Craigslist scammers. He has a dozen or so "certified checks" from people who've paid $200 for his $100 "item" that their "agent" will come pick up. When they tell him to send the extra money back to them via Western Union Moneygram, he acts like he's never heard of such a thing. "You can just go to Walmart to get one at the Service Desk." "Walmart? Hell, I never go to that place!" "OK, you can get Target gift cards." "Gift carts? What do you put in a gift cart?" And on and on for weeks on end.
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trophy hunter... love it
 
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