Recently I was perusing my email in box and scattered among all the emails for vi*agra and male enhancement (my wife claims she has nothing to do with these) I came across an invite to test products for Cabelas. I am a cynical finance guy by day so I had my doubts from the get go. However, my schwag meter pegged into the red. Being a fly fishing media insider wannabe (and one with good antivirus software) I of course opened it.
Inside I found an link to C-A-B-E-L-A-S-T-O-R-E.c-o-m (dashes added to avoid any resemblance to linkage). Upon cautiously following the link, I found myself presented with a sign up form offering me a chance to test Cabela's products. If I were lucky they might even include a new Ford truck. When did Cabela's start selling trucks? I wondered.
Aside from the poor grammar and spelling errors in the email, a quick look at the header info for the confirmed that it didn't come from Cabela's at all. Apparently the phishers have started looking for fishers to scam. I am quite certain that any angler entering his or her information into the form on the suspect site would be subject to mass netbot attack or at least a bunch of spam (and not the tasty kind they love in Hawaii either).
Being the semi-journalistic type I sent out an email alerting Cabelas to the blatant corruption of their brand and got a quick response confirming the suspect website as having nothing to do with them. Hopefully they will find the perp and horse whip him with a twelve weight SLA series fly rod.
I thought I would pass this along as a public service. You should be thankful that I took time away from my emails with the Nigerian Doctor to clue you in to this scam. I dont want to give away too much, but lets just say that I am helping him and with the fee I'll be collecting a new yacht won't be an issue... Honey, have you seen our bank account numbers?
2 comments:
Yeah I got that same email. I was looking for the question about my bank account info and it never came so I thought maybe it was the real deal. I was wrong. Glad you posted this.
Andy
Flyfishingcommunity.com
Same Here! Except I know someone at Cabela's and they are investigating the phishers (with the tone of an expletive) What did it for me was the e-mail address; This is what James from Cabela's said:
"We are aware of the site and this is NOT through Cabela's. We do not recommend filling out any of this information. It is currently under investigation by Cabela's."
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