A baited hook

I received an email this morning from one of my users who had just been alerted to the fact that his email address had won a special ‘Lottery.’ The prize, donated by ‘the Computer Industry’ [for unlikely reasons!] was no less than US$600,000. All he had to do was contact the ‘Processing Officer’ and pay some taxes and legal fees upfront…

“Do you think it’s genuine?” my user asked me.

“No way,” I replied and wondered, as I hit Send, if he really thought it could be real. To me the thing had virtually leaped off the page and shouted ‘Scam!’ Even so, a few minutes later he replied asking;

“Are you $600,000 sure??”

I answered in one word (“YES!”) and then drew his attention to the abysmal use of language, the amateur layout, the non-corporate email address, the single phone/fax line, the (un)likelihood of big computer corporations paying out money in this way, the improbability of them not relentlessly advertising the fact even if they did, the improbability of them doing it from an address in the Netherlands in any case, the fact that he was being asked to pay tax on money he hadn’t received yet and a range of other warning signs.

No further replies were received but I was left wondering whether I, by virtue of working in the industry and having an interest in network security, am just especially cognisant of scams like this, or whether there are some people who are just especially gullible. I also wonder though which of us, on the whole, leads the happier life…