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[OM] Re: Beware: Another scam Paypal message

Subject: [OM] Re: Beware: Another scam Paypal message
From: "Ian Manners" <om@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 14:19:36 +1100 (EDT)
Hi Tris

>itself! but apparently without sparking the least interest (to judge by the 
>feedback, zero, I've received from Earthlink).

Working for an ISP, we use standard return form emails as we receive
anywere from 50 to 1000 of these emails from cust daily, some days
though, with the volume of emails telling us we are pricks/infected/stop
spamming them etc, we can have upto 10000 emails, such as the outbreak
of the Blaster and other MS based worms & virus, we just dont have the
capacity to reply, so 3 times in the past 14 months we have simply powered
through the emails deleting most, so we can answer the people who have
real tech support issues.

I believe that at least one ISP here in Australia, in January, simply deleted
two weeks worth of emails as they topped over 300,000 ! They didnt even
try to wean out the tech support/customer service ones.

You think this list generates a lot of email !

>Go figure. I wonder how much Mr. and Mrs. Smith lose annually to these 
>schemes. I also wonder what exactly is going on "out there' these days, why 
>"no one" seems to care very much one way or the other, and what this 
>portends for tomorrow.

We also use to try to warn people of the latest threats, and still do via our
website but joe average user doesnt seem to be bothered to check. If we
email a warning out, you would be amazed at the junk returns/replys that
we receive back, we also found out the hardway that people receiving
these warnings from us, expected us to fix the problem, take the other
party to court, etc, but to put it simply, we are not the sender, or the
receiver, or the company involved in the scam, just the posty.

>An ill wind blows and all that.

Due to the inherent security problems of MS software, and the stupidity
of the programmers of Outlook/Express, it is really a Microsoft problem
for the majority of problems, the PPal, and other scam emails like the banking
ones are what is called social engineered scam's, the banks have notices
and regularly issue warnings to customers but it is amazing how many
customers simply ignore the warnings UNTIL they ring the bank up
complaining that there account is missing 4999AU$

ISP's could also filter this material out but an ISP has to be careful so
as not to act as the 'censor', most ISP's do have this facility but once
more, it is up to the user to enable it.

Would you give your postman permission to decide what mail he can
deliver to you, and what mail to simply dispose of ?

An ISP is the provider of network connectivity, and that is the extent also
of thier support services, helping a customer with other issues apart
from simply connecting to the network now opens up a legal minefield
of liability etc, can, and has, backfired on an ISP with litigation.

Cheers
Ian Manners
http://www.comkal.net/photo/



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