How stupid can people really be?
I received an email this morning. Yes that's not that abnormal, however the contents of this email surprised me. It was email telling me that I have won a prize for just listing an item on Craigslist. Granted I haven't even touched this item for nearly two months and completely forgot about it,so someone went through a lot of trouble to get me a message about winning this prize.
At first glance, the email appeared to be from the CEO of Craigslist...or at least that was what she was claiming to be. She was offering to give me completely free, an Apple MacBook with a $1300 value. Claiming that Craigslist was teaming up with The Apple Company to give away many prizes and because I have placed an ad on the site I was a winner.
Here is the email.
Attention Megan Verburg,
My name is Angel Thomas, Chief executive officer of Craigslist. We have recently joined up with The apple company for a one-time promotional event today, we are giving away complimentary Apple MacBooks to randomly selected folks who have submitted an advert on C-list. You have been selected as one of our latest winners for today. We randomly choose numbers to match up with ads on Craigslist and your advertisement matched with our latest drawing.
We have nowNow we have joined up with Apple inc to market their hottest product yet, the Apple MacBook. Once yet again, we have been running this campaign for one-day only. All you need to do is CLICK HERE to visit our website created for this promotion and key in your email to get yours for free. Simply be sure to enter your email so we may locate our records to ensure that we have reserved one for you. That's it!
Congrats on winning a free Apple MacBook (valued at $1399). If you've any question or issues, feel free to email me back. However, you should claim your free MacBook first to ensure one will be set-aside for you personally before the deadline ends. We do understand that you may possibly not receive this email until after the deadline, however, we advise you check the web site and enter your email to see if we still have got yours on hold, which we often-times do because others haven't claimed theirs on time.
Angel Thomas
CEO, Craig's list
Now, this email got my attention for another reason. If this is indeed a scam, how did they get my information such as my direct email and my name? I don't respond to any of the ad responses from my email that is used for the ad itself and I never include my name. This email included my name, first and last, and was sent to the email I used to sign up for Craigslist. An email which is selected to remain blocked when posting on this site.
A couple things have me worried. One is that my information has some how been stolen from a group that says they will protect my information for using their site. The second is that this person could easily have hacked in to my information had I been stupid enough to actually click the link she placed in the email.
Needless to say this email was reported to Craigslist and to the IC3.
Please let me hear your opinion on this.
I received an email this morning. Yes that's not that abnormal, however the contents of this email surprised me. It was email telling me that I have won a prize for just listing an item on Craigslist. Granted I haven't even touched this item for nearly two months and completely forgot about it,so someone went through a lot of trouble to get me a message about winning this prize.
At first glance, the email appeared to be from the CEO of Craigslist...or at least that was what she was claiming to be. She was offering to give me completely free, an Apple MacBook with a $1300 value. Claiming that Craigslist was teaming up with The Apple Company to give away many prizes and because I have placed an ad on the site I was a winner.
Here is the email.
Attention Megan Verburg,
My name is Angel Thomas, Chief executive officer of Craigslist. We have recently joined up with The apple company for a one-time promotional event today, we are giving away complimentary Apple MacBooks to randomly selected folks who have submitted an advert on C-list. You have been selected as one of our latest winners for today. We randomly choose numbers to match up with ads on Craigslist and your advertisement matched with our latest drawing.
We have nowNow we have joined up with Apple inc to market their hottest product yet, the Apple MacBook. Once yet again, we have been running this campaign for one-day only. All you need to do is CLICK HERE to visit our website created for this promotion and key in your email to get yours for free. Simply be sure to enter your email so we may locate our records to ensure that we have reserved one for you. That's it!
Congrats on winning a free Apple MacBook (valued at $1399). If you've any question or issues, feel free to email me back. However, you should claim your free MacBook first to ensure one will be set-aside for you personally before the deadline ends. We do understand that you may possibly not receive this email until after the deadline, however, we advise you check the web site and enter your email to see if we still have got yours on hold, which we often-times do because others haven't claimed theirs on time.
Angel Thomas
CEO, Craig's list
Now, this email got my attention for another reason. If this is indeed a scam, how did they get my information such as my direct email and my name? I don't respond to any of the ad responses from my email that is used for the ad itself and I never include my name. This email included my name, first and last, and was sent to the email I used to sign up for Craigslist. An email which is selected to remain blocked when posting on this site.
A couple things have me worried. One is that my information has some how been stolen from a group that says they will protect my information for using their site. The second is that this person could easily have hacked in to my information had I been stupid enough to actually click the link she placed in the email.
Needless to say this email was reported to Craigslist and to the IC3.
Please let me hear your opinion on this.
1 comment:
I've had this happen to me too with a different scam offer. I also hide my email for the account, type in a different contact email in the body of the ad and instead of @ I write AT so that the email isn't clickable. And they still managed to send something to my email that I use to login to craigslist. I always make sure that the link above says craigslist just like they tell you to when you login. It's annoying that people don't have anything better to do than to find ways to hack into things and mess with people.
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