I check my email regularly, both the normal inbox and the spam side just to make sure I don’t miss something or a good note gets misfiled as spam. Due to having been a scam victim in the past but fortunately not having lost anything major, I tend to be hyper-sensitive to things now, especially any kind of communication asking me to click on something to engage more.
Your Invoice is Ready, Sir
The common dumb-dumb scam going around right now is the usual email with an attachment stating the recipient’s order is ready and here’s the invoice for the charge. The variation I’ve seen on both email and texting is the courier saying a package needs to be rerouted to be delivered correctly, so click here. An interesting twist is starting to appear now in these scam attempts, as mundane as they are. They are starting to use old Hollywood actor names!
It all Started in Nigeria
Wait what? Yep, true story. But let’s digress for a moment. Nigeria as a country gets a bad rap for one of the most famous scams but, unfortunately, the Nigerian check scam was extremely successful. This was the basic idea that Nigerian prince needed to move some money around to protect it and was willing to pay the recipient 10% of a big fake check to help with the financial transfer process. Hundreds of thousands of people, primarily in the U.S. fell for this, mainly due to the greedy idea of getting something big for very little or no effort. Once the check was deposited in the bank, the person was then asked to move the money less the 10%, which ended up being their money while the fake check cleared. It didn’t, bounced, and the person was stuck explaining to their bank why they deposited a bad check and lost upwards over $10,000 to a scam.
Much of this problem was thwarted with the institution of instant check processing versus the old paper method that took up to a week. Now banks freeze instantly any big or suspicious checks and reject them. But the recipient could still get swindled their own money if they fail to wait for the scam check to clear first. It almost happened to me this year with a fake job hire offer using the same scam model but with equipment to do the new job. See my story on that one here.
Hollywood Names Sound Safe
So, back to our latest trend, why Hollywood names? Well, because American or English names sound authentic and safe, to be blunt. It’s a bit of discrimination, but having an Asian or African name for example doesn’t get people to hand over their money like a good old-fashioned Western name. Sorry scammers who want to be authentic; your foreign name doesn’t work.
So here we have a recent example that landed in my inbox this morning with a seemingly innocent name, Lisabeth Taylor. Hmmm…ring a bell anyone?
source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_Taylor,_late_1950s.jpg
If you know your movie history, you’ll also know that Elizabeth Taylor was one of the most famous actresses, as well as considered one of these most classically beautiful ones from the 20th century, as seen in the publicity still above (originally from MGM and now in the public domain). The interesting thing here is that scammer know a good name when they see it and, since Ms. Taylor is now long gone and barely remember, it makes for a good scam name on an innocent-looking email.
Knowing History Avoids Repeating It
What’s the point of all this? Having a good sense of history and constantly learning about the past avoids the mistakes of the future. The scam email I received made the fatal mistake of using a Hollywood name that I would recognize simply because I actually paid attention to actors when I was younger. The reverse could happen, they could use a relevant name from today, and I probably wouldn’t catch it as easy. But it helps to look up names easily and free on a search engine before engaging with anyone you don’t know in an odd email. A few seconds of prevention can be worth your bank account.
