The lazy scammer
A scammer attempted to scam me today. It was quite amusing.
He called the office this morning and attempted to convince me that the free listing our organisation had been enjoying in something called City Map which was now sadly coming to an end. To confirm that we didn’t want to continue with this generous offer in a ‘well known’ publication I’ve never actually heard of, I just had to sign and fax back a form that he was sending over right now.
So the fax duly arrives. It is a poorly laid out sheet of A4 utilising three different font types in eight (count them!) sizes and contains a proof of ‘our ad’. Our logo is wrong and our company information incorrect in both content and spelling.
The fax includes some humorous instructions like ‘The advertising will materialise after the placing of the order’ and other contractual information which is clearly made up. It also includes some crafty clauses indicating that if you sign this form you’re not actually cancelling the free listing that you’re not aware that you have, but ordering £1,697 of display advertising which you can’t cancel for two years instead.
But, small print aside, who would fall for this scam? This is people working in marketing and communications that they are targeting – vacuous people like me who judge things entirely by how many font sizes and spelling mistakes there are. Such a poorly executed scam deserves to fail. Put some effort in scammers!!!
Tags: marketing moments
August 7th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
That nice lady who can’t spell keeps emailing me about her late husband and the $22million she needs to get out of Nigeria btw…
Oh yes a guy near Tottenham Court Road tube on Oxford Street with the… “I’m not just giving you all this perfume today but just today I’ll throw in all this other for free…” I can’t believe there is anyone in London still falls for that pony is there? Well obviously or he wouldn’t be there doing it…
August 7th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I love those phone calls too…. “i’m from XYZ, before I continue can you just confirm a few details for me please, so that I can confirm that I am indeed speaking to Piley….. whats your date of birth….” CLICK Hello??? HELLO??? Piley?? Why do they always ring when I’m having my tea too? Grrr
August 9th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Piley, I’m lucky enough never to have recieved someone trying it on at home, it’s mostly work hassle and the old Nigerian email scams that Furtheron reminds us off. And speaking of Futheron, I’ve got the day off today. Think I might head into town and get me some of those free goodies from the perfume man… argh…!
August 10th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
These days we just pass anything like this on to out communications department and they get to laugh at it. A while back though I did take up on one that was a genuine decent advert and managed to get material about our park & ride sites displayed in a town centre car park. That was a great coup and we got a whole month of exposure before the car park firm’s regional manager spotted it. Not only did we get our money back when they covered it over, but got another free couple of months a year on when they removed the patch but failed to re-sell the spot.
August 10th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Was this a ‘real’ scam then Simon? I don’t think that this particular publication even existed. Yours sounds like one of the few contenders for a mystical ‘when-scams-go-well’ consumer show!