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Look what showed up in my spam folder over the weekend! It's a spam/phishing email running the classic review scam, in which you are asked to fill out a survey from Costco or Amazon or some other retailer. Another common version of this same scam offers you a gift card that you can redeem by going to a link - which, like the survey, collects phishing information and can download malware onto your computer.
These sorts of scams are really easy to spot - even though the name of the sender usually says Costco or Amazon or the name of another retailer, the domain that the email is coming from and where the message presumably links to has nothing to do with that retailer. Usually it's something random that doesn't look particularly significant - but check out the domain up there! Isn't that the domain of E. A. Koetting, Mr. "Become a Living God?"
Honestly, I hope not. Yes, Koetting is over the top and ridiculous and charges a bunch of money for basic magick instruction that you could find in dozens of books, and adds a layer of hype to it that is pretty much unmatched anywhere in the magical community. But if he's to the point where he's resorting to phishing scams? Well, then I just feel bad for him. That's a pretty sad way to make a living, and it also is a sad commentary on the state of magical instruction in general. Yeah, most of us can't make a living at it, full stop. But descending into email scams is a whole new level.
As I'm typing this up, I'm noticing that the domain is actually misspelled, missing the "e" in "become." But if this isn't Koetting, that's kind of weird too. Why would an email spammer want to pretend to be Koetting? "Become a living god" can't be the sort of domain that inspires much confidence in prospective marks. I would think that if somebody was going to do this, They would want to spoof a domain that is at least neutral. In fact, I would think that smart spammers would want to spoof something that at least looks like retailer's name - though I've never seen them do that.
I suppose spammers aren't smart. If they were smart, they probably would be in another line of work. There was a brief period in the late 1990's, before people got sophisticated spam filters, when spamming was easy and profitable. But that hasn't been the case for almost two decades now. These days, it's just kind of pitiful.
These sorts of scams are really easy to spot - even though the name of the sender usually says Costco or Amazon or the name of another retailer, the domain that the email is coming from and where the message presumably links to has nothing to do with that retailer. Usually it's something random that doesn't look particularly significant - but check out the domain up there! Isn't that the domain of E. A. Koetting, Mr. "Become a Living God?"
Honestly, I hope not. Yes, Koetting is over the top and ridiculous and charges a bunch of money for basic magick instruction that you could find in dozens of books, and adds a layer of hype to it that is pretty much unmatched anywhere in the magical community. But if he's to the point where he's resorting to phishing scams? Well, then I just feel bad for him. That's a pretty sad way to make a living, and it also is a sad commentary on the state of magical instruction in general. Yeah, most of us can't make a living at it, full stop. But descending into email scams is a whole new level.
As I'm typing this up, I'm noticing that the domain is actually misspelled, missing the "e" in "become." But if this isn't Koetting, that's kind of weird too. Why would an email spammer want to pretend to be Koetting? "Become a living god" can't be the sort of domain that inspires much confidence in prospective marks. I would think that if somebody was going to do this, They would want to spoof a domain that is at least neutral. In fact, I would think that smart spammers would want to spoof something that at least looks like retailer's name - though I've never seen them do that.
I suppose spammers aren't smart. If they were smart, they probably would be in another line of work. There was a brief period in the late 1990's, before people got sophisticated spam filters, when spamming was easy and profitable. But that hasn't been the case for almost two decades now. These days, it's just kind of pitiful.
3 comments:
Actually spammers are pretty smart. By having so many mistakes in their emails, they make sure that only the dumbest people end up clicking on the links, and that are less likely to have proper protection on their devices. Those are also more likely to fall for other types of scams.
As for the domain name, it has been registered since 2017, and I suspect it may have been used for other purposes before this one.
So... you are saying that people who are likely to click on something from "become a living god" are dumb???
XD XD XD
Of course not, only the ones who click on something from becom a living god!
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