With nearly 60m blogs in existence worldwide, according to blog search engine Technorati, it is no surprise that fraudsters and spammers are turning their attention to the new medium.
Most bloggers will be familiar with comment spam. This is where spammers try to post comments that look (more or less) like the sort of thing a real person would leave on a blog, except that they link to all manner of unsavory websites.
Now, fraudsters are getting in on the act. For example, this comment received this morning on Get Safe Online. (It also proves that the spammers do not read the sites they spam or they have a finely developed sense of irony.)
REFERENCE NUMBER:UK/839030X2/14
BATCH NUMBER:065/088/XY24
TICKET NUMBER:023-1111-790-458 OUR REF: 27349/46
This E mail is to inform you that you emerged a winner in our online draws which was played on the 8th of April, 2007.For further Information about your Winnings,contact our Lottery Fiduciary agent with the following contact
Name: Mrs. Sharon Cole
E-mail Address:verification2007unit@yahoo.co.uk
Sir. Richard K Lloyds
Co-ordinator(Online Promo Programme)
If you run a blog, we suggest you use some kind of spam filtering, either a CAPTCHA system which requires commenters to prove that they are human or an email-like spam filter.
You can also read more about online fraud on our main site: Don’t fall for advance fee fraud and Don’t let conment trick you.
Technorati Tags: fraud, 411, scam, lottery, blog, blogging, comments, irony
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
i got so p*** off receiving these scam emails, that now I publish each one I receive on the web
http://www.scamemail.co.uk
I publish the scam emails in their entirity – spelling mistakes and all! to help people recognise it as the same email they’ve received.
The fraudsters seem to be getting more cunning, they often include warnings about online fraud and scams! Some of the emails warn about breaching confidentiality and copyright laws too!
I will carry on publishing all scam emails I receive.