Egging On The Spam

This is the latest scam warning to hit inboxes.

It appeared a few years ago and now it’s back with a vengance:

If you are driving at night and are attacked with eggs, do not operate the wiper and spray any water.

Because eggs mixed with water become milky and block your vision up to 92.5%
Then you are forced to stop at the road side and become a victim of robbers
This is a new technique used by robbers in Johor Bahru.

Please inform your friends and relatives

What you’ve got here is a case of bad research crossed with bad science.

Firstly, no link is given to any media reports of this actually happening.

Secondly, no reference is given to which scientist did the study that proves the visibility of eggs.

Thirdly, Johor Bahru is in Malaysia. Unless an international ring of egg throwing car jackers are making their way across asia, you don’t have much to worry about.

And perhaps most importantly, the whole scam is uncovered on snopes.

Posted in Hoax, Internet, News | 1 Comment »

Marks

When con artists talk about victims they call them ‘marks.’ The folk wisdom if that it comes from the chalk markings that swindlers put onto the shoulders of suckers to show other con artists where the easy pickings are.

It’s similar to the old urban legend about hobos leaving marks outside of houses to tell other hobos whether a house is welcoming or unsafe.

Now, we have the 21st century version with reports of theives in the UK leaving chalk markings to tell their peers what sort of goodies a house has.

I suspect this particular story is a beat up, a hoax blown up by the newspapers.

Firstly, no criminals have been quoted as saying they know about or have used the system.

Secondly, criminals don’t tend to leave hints for other criminals. There is little honour among theives.

Thirdly, it’s the kind of story which is easy to fake and hard to prove false.

Posted in Hoax, News | 4 Comments »

Westfield Gift Card Scam

A couple of days ago, a lot of my Australian friends changed their facebook status to:

All I want for Christmas is a Westfield Gift Card!

They’d added an application that is meant to give them a chance to with $10,000 from Westfield.

However, a few hours later, many more of my friends has a new status:

THE WESTFIELD GIFT CARD APPLICATION IS FAKE AND IF YOU ENTER THIS SITE THEY CAN HACK INTO YOUR PROFILE AND USING IT TO LOAD TROJON VIRUSES. FACEBOOK R IN THE PROCESS OF TRYING TO CLOSE THIS APPLICATION DO NOT ADD UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR IDENTITY STOLEN OR A CRASHED COMPUTER……COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR STATUS.

So what’s the story?

Westfield is indeed running a promotion through facebook. You can find the offical link here.

It’s the latest in a long history of fake virus warnings and phony fear mongering.

Of course, you have little chance of winning and you’ll annoy all your friends when the crass message shows up on their home page probably leading to them ‘hiding’ you as a friend in the future.

But if you want to sell out that’s your business.

Stamp Font. Awesome.

Posted in ABC Radio, Hoax, Internet | 2 Comments »

I Knew It!

….

Posted in Hoax, News | 6 Comments »