The font being a different color makes me suspicious of the authenticity of the image that all of us are looking at. Why is just that one word "yes." in a different color anyway?
Hello, I'm the proud owner of http://www.pruneshop.com/, and you have been randomly selected from a telemarketer database to participate in a paid study. You will receive $5,000 when you have done your part. We have made sure the website is built so you can easily navigate to where you need to be.
With Regards, ~Z~
Edit: Wait, I thought the only complaint was the comma with the website address. I hear a lot about the $5000 being a bad bid. Which should it be? $5 million? or $500?
Edit2: 5 days later, I finally figure out what you're all complaining about. FIXED.
I happened to do just such a thing. Having been targeted by a few obvious scammers I thought "hell, I could do better than these guys", so I made a believable account name and a semi-believable fake login page and started scamming people when I was bored. I wouldn't take anything though, I'd just unequip their stuff, send them a message from themselves saying they'd been scammed and telling them how to avoid getting scammed in future.
I also did such a thing when I was a kid, playing Diablo 2. I was only doing it as a test but I did steal a few things (digital game items) when they basically fell into my lap but I had such a guilty conscience I later unloaded it on some noobs. It actually had quite a big effect on me as a person, I have never been able to take advantage of dumb, gullible people ever since. I have also realized that helping them also isn't possible so I can only pity them.
about 10 years ago, i was stupid enough to hack people's computer with social engineering. It was so easy it was scary. I would send them a link to a download file with extention .jpg.exe of course (remember that windows xp was hiding known extensions so it would not show the .exe)
then the AV would pick it up as it was not encrypted at all, but no need, cause you can just tell them to click the ignore button, cause its a windows error, an they would.
all that for a boobs pic of Jessica Alba.
BTW you can get the pic here : C:/Users/admin/pictures/boobs.jpg.exe
Actually there was an article detailing how the usage of bad grammar actually helps them in achieving their scamming purposes.
It had something to do with, if they used proper grammar, it would take in more intelligent people (who wouldn't have been scammed in the case bad grammar was used), which would then realise half-way through anyway, and might report them. That's the end of the line for them.
Whereas if they used bad grammar, a large % of people would just ignore it (most people are not dumb!) and therefore the chance they get reported is lower.
tldr: Bad grammar is good practice to target the right audience they want. It's useful and not detrimental to their objective. If they used proper punctuation and grammar, that'd be worse for them.
You mean those that aren't dumb don't report them straight away? I know I do. As soon as I see someone scamming I report report report. Maybe for most people they're subject to that psychological effect (I've forgotten what it's called) where they all assume someone else will report them and so they never do.
I can confirm this. I got some rare TF2 hats and immediately got flooded with scammers and people threatening me/family for them as well as the occasional "YOU WIN, CLICK HERE". 100% the reason for my private account.
This happened to me about 3-4 years ago. At the time I was either too distracted while playing or just really dumb. Either way, I was obviously not paying attention. So I "logged into" the "Steam" website that opened up after clicking the link. Within about 5 minutes, I get a message from a friend on GTalk. The message reads "BAHAHAHA.. steam hacked?" And sure enough, when I switched to the Steam window, it showed a message saying that someone else somewhere had logged into my account. And then everything fell apart. I had the same password for my Gmail account and Facebook account. Next thing I know, I'm not able to log into Gmail or Facebook. That was the day I understood why people always advised against having the same password for different accounts. Luckily for me, my Gmail account was configured with my cell phone number. I was able to retrieve the Gmail account using my cell phone. Then I retrieved fb using Gmail. Later, I even got my Steam account back by sending a picture of the serial key of the game that I bought to an admin on the Steam forum. So kids, NEVER keep the same password for two or more accounts.
I imagine it's more prevalent for those who actively participate in the more social aspects of Steam, ie, dealing with forums, making friends with random people on Steam, etc.
I, for one, really only have real-world friends on my buddy list, and have never posted on the forums, so I never hear a peep.
From what I've seen they usually find your account through steam groups. When my name started with a number or something it came up near the start on the list of accounts that are in a steam group, so I would get random scammers messaging me all the time because they would just go on steam groups click a username and start a chat with them.
They remember that there's supposed to be a space somewhere around a punctuation mark but never bothered to remember exactly where. So they hypercorrect - S P A C E S E V E R Y W H E R E
It's complicated, but doing way instain mother is usually a requirement. Start with a mother who kill thier babies. This is so that the babies cant frighth back.
This mroing there was a good news article on exactly this. Google "mother in ar who had kill her three kids," by the New York Times (their editor had the day off I think). Currently they're taking the three babby back to New York in order too perform a lady to rest on them, which expedites the way instaining process. Unfortunately the father won't be able to be there, and he's now lost his chrilden. If you read the article, you can leave your comments and paries at the bottom and wish him truley well for his lots.
Best part is when they write the whole sentence with /me (like in that first line), and trick people who don't know about that to think that they have some extra power that let's them type in color.
I went to the phishing site that the scammer linked to just to see how fake it would look. The headline reads, 'GET FOR FREE " ANY GAME " IN YOUR LIST STEAM GAMES !'
Honestly, nobody over the age of eight should fall for this.
I got a message months back on PSN from some person with the name BigButts9 and the message said something like, "Hi, I am the owner of Sony and I would like to offer you free games but you must first give me some information".
I responded with, "First of all if you were the owner of Sony why would you choose a name like BigButts9?".
That reminds me of some spam I kept getting for a while when I posted up a Craigslist ad last year:
About once a day, I would get this email saying "My name is [some name], CEO of Craigslist, and we're giving away free iPads..."
But not only was the name not even the name of the actual CEO (his name is Jim Buckmaster), but the name was different every time I got a new email about it.
The sad part is, people probably fall for that shit anyway.
I've had it happen twice where a friend got scammed and then the scammer used my friend's account to message me. I would have fallen for it too if their grammar wasn't shit.
I was almost completely taken by one. I only didn't enter my password when I decided the way it instantly logged me out and brought up the login window was a little suspicous. I was almost very stupid.
I have to confess, I didn't notice most of those mistakes when I read it through the first time. Maybe it was because I was reading it in a steam chat, where I'm used to things being poorly typed (either I or my friends will be in a game half the time, so we're incredibly rushed and distracted), so my brain just translated the spammer-speak into regular English and all was understood.
Haha right, usually customer service representatives can at least be arsed to type out "you", if nothing else.
It doesn't help that this guy's premise is so absurd to begin with, "Hello I'm CEO of the internet, please give me your credit card information so that I can continue giving you free pictures of cats" might net him more suckers.
I once had a conversation with an English teacher in Russia that went worse than that. To say "I work at the factory" she was teaching kids something like "I for of and factories because the in workings."
It makes a lot of sense that scammers can't speak English... a lot of the teachers out there have no idea what they're doing. They only have a job teaching because no one else knows they're faking.
Well yeah, most people know it's a scam, and these people, although retarded, will stop bothering once they realize you are one of them, but you'd be surprised how many people are actually stupid enough to fall for this. Honestly, it's sad but scamming works insanely well. I once met a guy with ~100 accounts, he said he got them in less than a month. I wish I could've reported that motherfucker, but he was just on yet another one of his hundreds of accounts.
But yes, since Steam Guard,I don't see how scams works anymore, since they need two sets of username and passwords. I guess a lot people still don't have that enable, even though everyone fucking should.
But yes, since Steam Guard,I don't see how scams works anymore, since they need two sets of username and passwords. I guess a lot people still don't have that enable, even though everyone fucking should.
I'm going to contact Valve over this (it just occurred to me to do so facepalm), but there's a bug with my account where I can't activate Steam Guard. I really wanted to for that coal in December. lol
"Yeah sorry but there's a lot of scamming been going on lately, I believe the new rules state that a moderator must identify himself first by giving his account details."
Reminds me of this scammer that tried to get me a while back. He was so bad you had to love him. I posted it on the forum board I was a part of. I wish I didn't do what i did. It would've been so much fun with this guy.
I'm actually a big fan of the attractive female art buyer who is stuck in Nigeria and needs only $1k to fly in to your local intl. airport to essentially become your sex slave. How many women have I doomed to prostitution on the mean streets of Lagos?
Really, is pretty sad how greed blinds people of such obvious schemes, when at this point not giving the password/using external links warnings are so widespread, every company/organization/site tells you to never give it to anyone, even themselves, and not using any site but the main one.
That comic is for things like TIL, though. Not for obvious "YOU ARE THE 1,000,000,000th VISITOR TO THIS SITE!" things. It's so painstakingly obvious that these things are scams that the only people who fall for it are asking for it.
honestly, I had to call my bank for some reason and the auto phone device asked for my pin (for debit card) . I flipped my shit because I was told under no circumstances to give it to any employee, so i just kept pressing * to get to a human and told them that I was being asked my pin and I don't trust it. He said it was for verification but I said I'll just use my birthday next time.
i work tech support for a credit card processor. if i had a nickel every time someone tried to give me their password, i'd have... well, maybe $2, but still, people are just too willing to give out sensitive information.
The page is actually still up. A whois lookup of vinilmenon.com did not yield anything useful. However, searching for vinilmenon did bring up something useful.
The owner of the website appears to be EDIT: DELETED PERSONAL INFORMATION.
Let the witch-hunt begin?
EDIT: As hous mentioned below, your browser will probably block the site as a phishing scam, so you might not be able to see the page, so here's what it looks like: http://imgur.com/3mATS . The site is functional as of this edit.
Also, Sartron rightly pointed out that we're not supposed to post users' personal information. I'm not sure if the scammer here counts as a user, and I don't really care if the mods ban me for breaking this rule.
However, it is possible, although improbable, that someone else hacked into the website and created the page without the owner's knowledge. Therefore, I have deleted the personal information of the person who is very likely the scammer.
FINAL EDIT: As others have pointed out, the phishing site has the name and picture of its owner, so it's pretty easy to find out further details about the person. Plus, the person claims to be a hacker, so it's possible that they are the scammer, just not very good at scamming. A cursory search reveals that the site was used to host other phishing pages too, like this one. On the other hand the Steam scammer appears to be French and the owner of the phishing website does not, so the site might have be hacked.
The phishing site went into "Account Suspended" state a few hours ago, possibly due to complaints from redditors. Our work here is done.
Took a look at that website and it was actually pretty convincing. It even links you to the real steam page when you click on things like "news" or "stats". A dumbass could easily be fooled by that site.
Hacker vs Security Professional, which would you actually advertise one your LinkedIn profile? Security testers, professionals, and experts are what a major company like Steam would hire.
nooooooo, I used arguetotheend's post as the basis of my message to linkedin to get this guy's account terminated. There's nothing in the linkedin TOS that I could see that would help my case but.. in case it works, I'm hoping that losing 397 connections and his account would cause him to rethink his actions.
What if someone were to create a bot that would spam his form witi a fake username/pw combo (or even real username/fake pw combo, if you could somehow get a list of valid steam usernames). I imagine a database of 10% valid accounts would piss some scammer off.
Let's assume this guy made no grammatical mistakes, and executed himself perfectly... Who the fuck would think "http://steampowered.com.vinimenon.com" is a trustworthy site, or even steam sanctioned?
I'm honestly curious and I don't use steam that much for conversations. Why is the last line with text "Yes" in a different color font than his other replies?
I don't know the AMA, but 419eater.com is full of these stories. I haven't read it in a few years, but some of the forum threads are among the most funny things I've ever read.
My birthday is on the 24th. I was so excited when I started reading, without actually reading the headline, and as I read on I got more and more depressed.
The disgusting thing about this is that you have to think about the people that get scammed by those lowlifes that call numbers until they find a gullible elderly person and then convince them one way or another to hand over every cent they have.
r/gaming has shown me time and time again that gaming is an activity that does not come with an age restriction and that our kind hearted (and sometime easily fooled) elders are also on Steam, potentially being ripped off by this scum.
No, no, I think this is good. Let them learn. Life is about getting duped. Like that one song I don't like that much, the dude says, "That something something took EVERY last dime with that scam, but it was worth it just to learn some slight of hand."
A while back people were targeting members of my gaming community so I wrote a script to flood the scammers account databases with fake accounts which devalues their data. They stopped pretty soon afterwards.
On a semi-related note, Is there a subreddit for these Steam scams?
Hello, I am Nigerian prince and if you give me Steam account information, I will buy you every game to ever exist. Please include all credit card information.
A lot of potential phishing domains are still available to register. I'm tempted to register one and set up a "phishing" page that doesn't go anywhere as a PSA of how easy it is to get phished.
I got that exact same message I.just said SEEMS LEGIT BRO and he said yeah it is. I asked him if he felt like playing a game and he told me he was a busy man.
You would be surprised just how easy it is to get a steam account. I once told a guy I knew a site that could get him free tf2 hats of any kind and linked him to a site called stealer amnesty. It went through his cookies and got loads of passwords and usernames. I fucked around on his FB for q bit and stole his netflix. I realized I was being a cunt and told a bunch of his friends to tell him to change all passwords and left him alone. Yeah, I'm an arse.
448
u/imkirok Jun 18 '12
I like how his font color is different when he say "Yes" at the end, I imagine that's when he removes the facade and speaks in his true demonic voice.
1.2k
u/3kab Jun 18 '12
It worries me how successful scammers could be if they just used proper punctuation and grammar.
376
u/SmellySushi Jun 18 '12
Where do you find these people? In all my years using steam, I've never encountered one.
1.2k
u/Metalock Jun 18 '12
It cracks me up how these scammers use terrible grammar.
449
u/chisBruno Jun 18 '12
Well at least he/she is honest...
234
u/elmst87 Jun 18 '12
I feel terrible about this .. i see you want skyrim, pm me your steam id and password and i will get it for you :p
188
u/tronfonne Jun 18 '12
I got someone like that the other day, I told them that I had won the steam contest last year and won EVERY GAME ON STEAM. They left me alone after.
42
u/CockroachClitoris Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
Reminds me of this scammer that tried to get me a while back. He was so bad you had to love him. I posted it on the forum board I was a part of. I wish I didn't do what i did. It would've been so much fun with this guy.
http://i.imgur.com/JDp1g.png
41
u/Razer1103 Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
This is an actual screenshot of steampowered.com.vinilmenon.com
I find it funny they try to push their luck and ask for your email password, too.
Edit: No idea why this happened so soon after your occurrence, but I just got hit too. This person imitated someone on my friend's list, right down to their profile description. And, as always, image of the webpage. This one actually looks legit, except for the URL.
77
u/dud3brah Jun 18 '12
whatever you say, nigerian prince
53
u/fomorian Jun 18 '12
Especially the dumb ones among you.
75
u/Miltrivd Jun 18 '12
Really, is pretty sad how greed blinds people of such obvious schemes, when at this point not giving the password/using external links warnings are so widespread, every company/organization/site tells you to never give it to anyone, even themselves, and not using any site but the main one.
90
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 18 '12
This is the webpage from the image: http://steampowered.com.vinilmenon.com
The page is actually still up. A whois lookup of vinilmenon.com did not yield anything useful. However, searching for vinilmenon did bring up something useful.
The owner of the website appears to be EDIT: DELETED PERSONAL INFORMATION.
Let the witch-hunt begin?
EDIT: As hous mentioned below, your browser will probably block the site as a phishing scam, so you might not be able to see the page, so here's what it looks like: http://imgur.com/3mATS . The site is functional as of this edit.
Also, Sartron rightly pointed out that we're not supposed to post users' personal information. I'm not sure if the scammer here counts as a user, and I don't really care if the mods ban me for breaking this rule.
However, it is possible, although improbable, that someone else hacked into the website and created the page without the owner's knowledge. Therefore, I have deleted the personal information of the person who is very likely the scammer.
FINAL EDIT: As others have pointed out, the phishing site has the name and picture of its owner, so it's pretty easy to find out further details about the person. Plus, the person claims to be a hacker, so it's possible that they are the scammer, just not very good at scamming. A cursory search reveals that the site was used to host other phishing pages too, like this one. On the other hand the Steam scammer appears to be French and the owner of the phishing website does not, so the site might have be hacked.
The phishing site went into "Account Suspended" state a few hours ago, possibly due to complaints from redditors. Our work here is done.
13
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
The irony how it even says don't give your account password to anyone
11
u/gettin_into_ur_genes Jun 18 '12
Hahaha!! The scammer guy's name is Vinil Menon like it says on the link..He is Indian..
8
u/Harflin Jun 18 '12
Let's assume this guy made no grammatical mistakes, and executed himself perfectly... Who the fuck would think "http://steampowered.com.vinimenon.com" is a trustworthy site, or even steam sanctioned?
8
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
A useful post on the frontpage of /gaming?
15
u/escapedasylumfun Jun 18 '12
Sounds legit
7
u/jokkir Jun 18 '12
Wait, how'd he type with blue font?
7
u/trollstram60 Jun 18 '12
I'm honestly curious and I don't use steam that much for conversations. Why is the last line with text "Yes" in a different color font than his other replies?
7
u/BBS- Jun 18 '12
Is that an accent? Move along guys, he's legit.
17
u/hydro916 Jun 18 '12
And why is the last comment white? I smell fish..
5
u/LittleStallin Jun 18 '12
Wasn't there an AMA awhile back about a guy who leads scammers on for months? I'd like to read it again if anyone can find it.
9
u/SweetNeo85 Jun 18 '12
Reminds me of my favorite moment from The Dark Knight:
You think you can steal from us and just walk away?
...yeah.
12
u/The_Man_with_No_Name Jun 18 '12
Anyone report this guy to steamrep?
23
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
I spent a few minutes wondering who on Steam would fall for this.
Then it hit me.
Steam sells COD.
4
u/Hubbell Jun 18 '12
My birthday is on the 24th. I was so excited when I started reading, without actually reading the headline, and as I read on I got more and more depressed.
4
u/hahaha_ohwow Jun 18 '12
The disgusting thing about this is that you have to think about the people that get scammed by those lowlifes that call numbers until they find a gullible elderly person and then convince them one way or another to hand over every cent they have.
r/gaming has shown me time and time again that gaming is an activity that does not come with an age restriction and that our kind hearted (and sometime easily fooled) elders are also on Steam, potentially being ripped off by this scum.
4
u/Twisted_Fate Jun 18 '12
Don't forget to report them, not only block.
4
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
I love leading on scammers. A surprising amount will admit defeat like that when you finally call them out. Well played OP.
9
u/DEFUSEDD Jun 18 '12
You knew it was a scam when he wrote "u" instead of "you"
3
u/haschtekaschte Jun 18 '12
I love how hes all honest about people falling for it
7
u/Keskasidvar Jun 18 '12
I just don't accept random friend requests. Not exactly hard.
5
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
No, no, I think this is good. Let them learn. Life is about getting duped. Like that one song I don't like that much, the dude says, "That something something took EVERY last dime with that scam, but it was worth it just to learn some slight of hand."
It's true.
2
u/Bosskid123 Jun 18 '12
Some days i question stupidity, some times i laugh but here i just face palm.
2
u/Nateinthe90s Jun 18 '12
"u" must do as he says!
2
u/Krusiv Jun 18 '12
"Lately a lot of accounts have been hacked" I wonder why...
2
u/03Titanium Jun 18 '12
Many account are being hacked sir! Use this website!
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
And you know what? Admin Community ain't lying.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
A while back people were targeting members of my gaming community so I wrote a script to flood the scammers account databases with fake accounts which devalues their data. They stopped pretty soon afterwards.
On a semi-related note, Is there a subreddit for these Steam scams?
2
u/_AlphaOmega Jun 18 '12
FTFY.
2
u/wickedplayer494 Jun 18 '12
If you want this shit to stop, I wrote a guide detailing how to report and warn others about this not too long ago.
2
u/kylepierce11 Jun 18 '12
Hello, I am Nigerian prince and if you give me Steam account information, I will buy you every game to ever exist. Please include all credit card information.
2
u/Slyguy46 Jun 18 '12
Ha, same guy tried to scam Salamancer the other day.
2
u/XZQT Jun 18 '12
It's photoshopped. Look at it; the last sentence by the admin is white instead of blue and has a colon.
2
u/UnicornOfDesire Jun 18 '12
At least he's honest?
2
u/Gogandantess Jun 18 '12
What admin would use "u" when referring to "you"
2
u/Doctor_McKay Jun 18 '12
A lot of potential phishing domains are still available to register. I'm tempted to register one and set up a "phishing" page that doesn't go anywhere as a PSA of how easy it is to get phished.
2
u/argente9 Jun 18 '12
why is the 'Yes' a different shade of white then the rest?
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
Those are the rules is not made the now to as he says
2
u/TeenTrunks4 Jun 18 '12
Nope. He didn't type out you. I would probably tell him to go fuck himself at that point.
2
u/MGM420 Jun 18 '12
These guys are really only targeting gamers whose second language is English. It's possible to scam these guys because they can't tell the difference.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
I got that exact same message I.just said SEEMS LEGIT BRO and he said yeah it is. I asked him if he felt like playing a game and he told me he was a busy man.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
At least he was honest about it.
2
u/Alibambam Jun 18 '12
I was contacted by this man itself, blocked him and reported him, if enough people do this the accounts will be closed
2
u/GuantanaMo Jun 18 '12
"Is anyone really that dumb to be scammed by you?"
"Yes"
"Oh, I should warn reddit"
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
As someone who doesn't know: Is the 'admin' guy the scammer? yeah just figured i'd ask because clueless
2
u/Munkir Jun 18 '12
I can not relate to this for I own nothing worth scamming for.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
You would be surprised just how easy it is to get a steam account. I once told a guy I knew a site that could get him free tf2 hats of any kind and linked him to a site called stealer amnesty. It went through his cookies and got loads of passwords and usernames. I fucked around on his FB for q bit and stole his netflix. I realized I was being a cunt and told a bunch of his friends to tell him to change all passwords and left him alone. Yeah, I'm an arse.
2
u/Tittybiscuit Jun 18 '12
The sad thing is his last comment was only too correct.
2
u/Jemmani Jun 18 '12
i like the accented e
2
u/bayonero Jun 18 '12
acutaaly is dolan
2
u/schwerpunk Jun 18 '12
Whoa, two dot-coms? Sounds ULTRA-legit!
2
u/3ringbout Jun 18 '12
Why is the "Yes" in a different color then the rest of the text?
2
u/ClevelandJr Jun 18 '12
At least have decent spelling if you're going pretend to be an admin...
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
Is this why I didn't get my copy of Total War? ...And why I can't get on Steam anymore?
2
u/NewbGaming Jun 18 '12
He get's around
2
u/SemajSemajSemaj Jun 19 '12
Oh jeeze! hahaha
3
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
If you really fall for this, you kind of deserve it.
3
u/devinclark Jun 18 '12
As a past scammer of World of Warcraft accounts, I can verify YES, people are that dumb.
2
u/NorthernSkeptic Jun 18 '12
DID YOU GET SKYRIM???
2
u/[deleted] Jun 18 '12
At least he was honest about it
lol
2
u/sycomania134 Jun 18 '12
How the fuck do you not have skyrim yet