July 17, 2008

Great moments in trustworthy spam pen names

The folks who send out fraudulent phishing email from Nigeria and elsewhere don't always have a well-developed sense of what names would strike rich dumb Americans as confidence-inspiring. Here, for example, is the beginning of an email rescued from my Junk file:

CAHOOT Bank has been receiving complaints from our customers for unauthorised use of the CAHOOT Online accounts. As a result we periodically review CAHOOT Online Accounts and temporarily restrict access of those accounts which we think are vunerable to the unauthorised use.

I don't think they quite have a handle on what the phrase "in cahoots" implies to Americans.

11 comments:

  1. Cahoot's the name of an online bank in the UK.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's real =)

    http://www.cahoot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Its unfortunate that Cahoot really is a British bank.

    I know, its a stupid name for a bank I think they came up with at the end of the dot com boom.

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  4. They're going after the Brits.

    It's a big online bank in England.

    http://www.cahoot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. I got a message entitled "A nice game". In the message

    "This is a very nice game
    This game is my first work.
    You're the first player.
    I expect you would enjoy it."

    It comes with a download. Sounds like a really nice game, I think I'll try it.

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  6. You need to get a spam filter, dude.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Last week I got one with the subject line "Obama found dead in shock accident."

    I knew it was spam, but I was wondering whether it was a new storm worm attack, so I googled the subject line and found the following message in the body of the email:

    Get smart with these new organ enhancement growth pills - see the results for yourself
    www.definemassive.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, I keep getting these organ enhancement spam mails that come with breaking news subject lines. Such as "Beijing Olympics cancelled, moved to Athens" or "Paris Hilton stabbed by stalker"

    ReplyDelete
  9. I keep my savings in Cahoot. It's a respectable on-line bank with a reasonable interest rate. The phrase 'in cahoots' means the same in British English as in American English, I think: 'in company, partnership or collusion with'. It's just a name. A while ago there was a Japanese bank called the Tomato Bank.

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  10. There's even a British credit card called gold phish. Kinda.

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  11. "Yes, I keep getting these organ enhancement spam mails..."

    Dude, you should stay on better terms with your exes.

    ReplyDelete

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