• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

(Anti-) Social Media: Scams / Shams / Shills On Facebook & Other Sites

Reading through the description of the language used, it screams scam!
Bad English usage can be put down to a non-native speaker but in a business communication, especially an advert, it positively screams SCAM!

Perhaps, it's actually intended. I mean, if you don't take in the bad English then you might be foolish enough to part with your money?
 
I think I do recall reading somewhere that these scam emails etc deliberately use mis-spelling and poor grammar to make it seem more believable?
Something to do with how we perceive honesty and give trust to things if we expect fallacy to be an indication of virtue.
Or something.
 
Nice in theory but I, for one wouldn't trust a firm that can't spell or even use a proof reader.
It's like spam emails to businesses, sent from even genuine 'marketing' firms. Everyone knows spam is, at the very least, bloody annoying. Would I want my firm to be associated with annoyance and inconvenience?
 
True ... but, then again, I have zero respect for the UK print media anyhow.
Presenting news, information, facts is all very well but, really, money dictates how and how much these are presented.
 
Perhaps, it's actually intended. I mean, if you don't take in the bad English then you might be foolish enough to part with your money?
Makes sense in a sad and pathetic way. :(

Like the 'grocers' apostrophes' and other poor uses of English, which some wags assert are deliberate.
An indignant punctuation-pedant might storm into the shop to complain about the mushroom's and pertaters, then stay for a cucumber and some of those nice plums, please. :chuckle:
 
I think I do recall reading somewhere that these scam emails etc deliberately use mis-spelling and poor grammar to make it seem more believable?
Something to do with how we perceive honesty and give trust to things if we expect fallacy to be an indication of virtue.
Or something.
I've read this too. But maybe this is also a scam? Made to lure us into thinking that anything with correct spelling and grammar can't possibly be a scam? It just seems very... self limiting to me. Produce a scam but build into it faults that mean that only people who are not well educated will fall for it? Why not produce a scam that's correct in all forms, and try to lure in more people...?

I mean, the Nigerian Prince-type scams are often in perfect English. So are many others (I got the text from 'Royal Mail' only the other day, telling me I needed to pay under delivery on a parcel. Perfect English, perfect grammar.) If the 'make it a bit crap so only those not paying attention will fall for it' is true, then why aren't ALL scams a bit crap?
 
Some laugh-out-loud moments in a Guardian article, for once:

Twits have taken to Twitter to complain about some poetry.

It was an old purple patch of Shelley that went unrecognized, when the game was to put the boot into a political hate-figure. Yes, the bit about lions after slumber and yes, probably the political hate-figure who first springs to mind. Safe, therefore, to let rip with the voice of the informed critic:

“This is a poem by someone who knows fuckall about lions.” :rofl:
 
Last edited:
Some laugh-out-loud moments in a Guardian article, for once:

Twits have taken to Twitter to complain about some poetry.

It was an old purple patch of Shelley that went unrecognized, when the game was to put the boot into a political hate-figure. Yes, the bit about lions after slumber and yes, probably the political hate-figure who first springs to mind. Safe, therefore, to let rip with the voice of the informed critic:

“This is a poem by someone who knows fuckall about lions.” :rofl:
Quite scary really in a hilarious way. People do make idiots of themselves and Twitter seems to be full of them.
 
Elon Musk's mother follows me! Odd that she only has 510 followers though and you'd think Elon would have given Mom Musk a Blue Tick!


5nBWjown_x96.jpg


Tosca musk

@Tosca_Musk___
moviemaker & mom
Joined October 2009
·
510 Followers
Not followed by anyone you’re following

Hello how are you doing?

it seems you're a very big fan of my son, how happy will you be if i give you the opportunity to have a conversation with my son Elon musk?

Yesterday, 6:44 PM
 
LaughElon Musk's mother follows me! Odd that she only has 510 followers though and you'd think Elon would have given Mom Musk a Blue Tick!


5nBWjown_x96.jpg


Tosca musk
@Tosca_Musk___
moviemaker & mom
Joined October 2009
·
510 Followers
Not followed by anyone you’re following

Hello how are you doing?

it seems you're a very big fan of my son, how happy will you be if i give you the opportunity to have a conversation with my son Elon musk?

Yesterday, 6:44 PM
She has to buy one like everyone else. :rollingw:
 
Some laugh-out-loud moments in a Guardian article, for once:

Twits have taken to Twitter to complain about some poetry.

It was an old purple patch of Shelley that went unrecognized, when the game was to put the boot into a political hate-figure. Yes, the bit about lions after slumber and yes, probably the political hate-figure who first springs to mind. Safe, therefore, to let rip with the voice of the informed critic:

“This is a poem by someone who knows fuckall about lions.” :rofl:
“Its [sic] actually by Shelley, whoever that is,” Lady Mary tweeted to Danielle Blake later on in this most edifying of Twitter threads.

Marvellous.
 
We've been hit with a spate of calls warning us that there is a warrant out for our arrest from Inland Revenue for tax evasion. It's agood job these Indian scammers have no idea about the workings of the UK system.
It works to sucker many folks in the UK who also have no idea.
 
I think i just got another one, i didnt answer it at all, bloody scammers aint getting nothing from me, cause i aint got nothing lol

13:40 got another one i hung up again, wft, is it scammers day?
 
Last edited:
I think i just got another one, i didnt answer it at all, bloody scammers aint getting nothing from me, cause i aint got nothing lol

13:40 got another one i hung up again, wft, is it scammers day?
Robocalls. I will get a call that makes a random threat such as your account has just been billed $1,000s and dial 1. They even do them on weekends now
 
I don't get that many scam texts, just the usual 'we have a parcel that failed to deliver' ones. But not many others. Emails, on the other hand... Fortunately I have a spam filter turned up so high that I sometimes miss emails that are legit, so I never see them, but I sometimes go into my spam folder just for a laugh. Honestly, some of those messages - do they REALLY work? The 'your invoice from (some company in America that I've never heard of) is overdue'; it might work if I was head of a financial department in a really big company, just paying out overdue invoices as a matter of course, but seriously? A small time writer in the back end of beyond in the UK? I suppose it's just block mailing, but why bother?
 
This one was a bit too convincing. Sometimes they’ve hardly put any effort in. It’s the ones where the subject of the email and the main text/pictures are claiming to be different things which are interesting.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_5197.jpeg
    IMG_5197.jpeg
    270.9 KB · Views: 12
This one was a bit too convincing. Sometimes they’ve hardly put any effort in. It’s the ones where the subject of the email and the main text/pictures are claiming to be different things which are interesting.
I've had a few like that. They're all Evri messages. They arrive around about the time I'm expecting a delivery from Evri, but I figured that they are fake. I'm going to take a guess that they're an inside job...someone at Evri is passing details to scammers.
 
I haven't had a scam call in a while for most of the last two years I was getting at least a couple a week, it's died down of late. No idea why.
 
I've had a few like that. They're all Evri messages. They arrive around about the time I'm expecting a delivery from Evri, but I figured that they are fake. I'm going to take a guess that they're an inside job...someone at Evri is passing details to scammers.
I wouldn’t say that. I wasn’t expecting anything. I think it’s just the fact that Evri deliver a lot of parcels so a lot of people will be expecting one. The actual email address they use is usually a dead give away.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_5199.jpeg
    IMG_5199.jpeg
    534.7 KB · Views: 11
I wouldn’t say that. I wasn’t expecting anything. I think it’s just the fact that Evri deliver a lot of parcels so a lot of people will be expecting one. The actual email address they use is usually a dead give away.
In my case, I've only had a certain item delivered to me by Evri on a regular basis (a prescription) - all other deliveries have been through some other delivery company. This is how I noticed it.
 
The 'your invoice from (some company in America that I've never heard of) is overdue'; it might work if I was head of a financial department in a really big company, just paying out overdue invoices as a matter of course, but seriously? A small time writer in the back end of beyond in the UK? I suppose it's just block mailing, but why bother?
Funnily enough, we once used an industrial unit for production in our shop. There was a very large firm selling refrigeration units on the same site. The firms name was nothing like ours, their unit number wasn't remotely like ours ... and yet, up until we closed in 2022, we still got emails (both spam and unsolicited touts) for this firm.
When it first started happening, we popped into their reception and told them about it; apparently, it all started by a 'free' listing site that looked up business addresses, got the details such as 'phone number and email, made an online mock-up then tried to sell it to the firm. When all the glaring errors were pointed out, the chancers went radio silent. It looked like they'd kept the mock-up online only for the info to be 'lifted' by scammers.
The funniest thing is the error of the original idiots: the firm's domain name was something like @Blahblah-Refrigeration.com and ours was @biccybones.co.uk! Not exactly an easy mistake to make!
 
Back
Top