One of the scammers’ most basic techniques is in making obvious mistakes, including spelling and grammar errors, to narrow down their target audience, i.e. to filter out more educated people so that of those who do reply a much higher proportion are likely to fall victim to the scam.
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I doubt those spammers are that smart.
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If they can generate 500k in cash, they can’t be that stupid. Although they did get caught.
Some key words are also misspelled to get round phishing filters.
It’s not just “stupid” people wo get scammed. If scammers want to get tens of thousands out of a victim (and they do), they’ll want a victim with that sort of money in a fairly liquid format.
You don’t hear much about these people getting scammed as quite often while they may go to the Police, they are too embarrassed to tell family and friends.
The people who underestimate spammers are probably the ones most likely to get scammed.
Quite so, and that’s the flip side of the spelling mistakes, allowing victims to believe that the scammers themselves are stupid .
Scammers know ai and translation apps. They are becoming far more “intelligent” in finding ways to professional communicate with their potential victims using these tools. Don’t be fooled into thinking that reading error-free English will translate to scam-free emails, etc.
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Well, it was not spam.
A month ago I got a legitimate call from the Aargau Kapo (cantonal police).
At the time, a 1 hour work meeting just ended and I was not in a happy place. Phone rings, some guy tells cantonal police. Noisy office, I only understood straf whatever. I was tempted to tell the scammer to ******* his ___ and himself. But, something in the back of my mind told me to be more reasonable. I replied in my broken German that I was too busy at work and please send everything by post.
A week later a letter from the police arrives. It was a Friday, I went to the gemeinde police to ask “is this legit?”, you know all the scams. They say, yes it is.
I went to the local police because the story in the documents was a bit crazy. The police caught a guy in the underground parking of the building stealing stuff from cars on a Monday night. The police found no damage in my car, but anyway sent me an Strafantrag für Antragsdelikte (Criminal complaint for criminal offenses) for trying to open the car. What???
It was Friday afternoon, called the AG Kapo and I got an automated message like “hello, it’s the weekend. if it’s an emergency call 117, otherwise Monday, tchuss!!!”. So, I was left wondering what the hell happened until Monday.
Sunday night a neighbor says hello and asks about the car and the police. I ask back, what do you know? I just received a letter from the police. My neighbor went down to the parking and saw a goblin-like guy trying to open his car. Neighbor is tall and buff, no surprise he immediately confronted the potential thief. Goblin guy calmly left neighbor’s car and went to pull the handles of my car. My neighbor keep arguing and the goblin calmly went for other cars in the parking. Neighbor realized something was really off with the goblin and called the police. Police took 15 min to arrive and the goblin was still trying to open other cars. At that moment the police asked the neighbor what he saw and then asked him to leave.
I call the police on Monday, I understand a similar story. Police asks about schaden/damages but none in my case. Police tells me to fill out the form for “trying to open the car” and return it signed. They tell me other neighbors did report damages.
The weird thing here is a person who probably has a mental illness, a severe drug addiction or a combination of them. A normal thief runs when seen, not calmly continues his work until the police arrives.
So, not everything is a scam. Sometimes, it’s the real police. I’ll try to remember this next time I get a call that seems to be a scam 
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That’s why scam is so annoying
Wow! You are a patient person. I usually interrupt this call at the word “Police” as latest.
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I got that stupid call 3 times from Switzerland, advising I have an arrest warrant out for me while in the UK last week.
Has anyone actually pressed 1 for more? I guess pressing 1 you can’t be charged…
I was tempted, but didn’t want to invite more calls…
Schreckenzum des lambeda?
Cannickt parlons anglada!
I had one today I never had before. From Europol, in French, claiming some cybercrime, with an email address from Brazil. The attachment was nicely done but the email address was a giveaway…
This looks almost legit.
I keep getting a request from SBB to update my data.
On my PC it is clearly false but my mobile phone just shows the short version.
I have tried to change to the longer version with no success
Me too. I even showed it to the clerk at the train station. The email address is noreply.sbb
From WRS this morning
We’re now all quite alert on the potential of being scammed online – but a new, although old fashioned, scam is underway and users of Postfinance bank accounts are being warned.
The scam comes in the post.
Letters are being sent to Postfinance customers. Police say they’re printed on high quality paper with the correct logos.
But they have a QR code and tell the customer, with some urgency, to scan the code to secure their online account.
The code leads to a fake website which then collects the customer’s confidential information.
Postfinance and the police say they’re shocked at the new method. It clearly could be so lucrative the scammers actually pay for the postage.
Anyone who’s already followed the fake link should contact the police. If you receive the letter you should tell the bank and not use the QR code.
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