Not today scammer. You’re not getting Walmart gift cards from me. That’s right someone tried to scam me. They tried to impersonate my company’s CEO, but it didn’t work on me. It did throw me off though. I’m a low man on the totem pole. Why would the CEO email me? Also, who is the CEO? I didn’t know when the scammer emailed me, I honestly thought he was a client. I knew I heard the name before, but I thought it was from being CC’d on an email to the client. Everything about the email through me off. Asking for help on an urgent task, using the word ASAP, and improper use of grammar. Everything was off. So, I thought to myself why did the scammer suck? Am I a super sleuth? Probably. But still I am going to analyze everything why this scam is trash.
- The Email Address
If you are going to email a peon in a random company impersonating a CEO, at least put the CEO’s name in the email. That’s right I said it. The scammer didn’t put the CEO’s name in the email. Instead it said Millsaps. Was a small liberal arts school in Mississippi emailing me? Is the urgent task that they want me to give a commencement speech at their upcoming graduation? I’m honored, but I doubt it. I would be surprised if a school of less than a thousand asked a random guy who works in record keeping to give a commencement speech. Nice try scammer, but I’m not that dumb.
- The Contents of the Email
Grammar. Let’s be real if your running a company for private equity, your going to use proper grammar. Capitalization is important. I know that if I’m sending an email to coworker, hell even if I’m doing a team’s message, I’m going to know when to capitalize. Starting off an email with “hi matthew”, is going to catch my attention, but not in the OMG THE CEO is messaging me kind of way. Mainly because I forgot who he was, but you get my point.
- What was the Scam?
The reason I mentioned that the scammer was not getting Walmart gift cards from me, is because I have seen the trick before. You get an email from the CEO asking you about an urgent task and then all the sudden they ask you for gift cards. Why are they asking for gift cards? Well they want to give them away for bonuses. Does it make sense? Frankly, no. If I was at work having an annual review and my boss said, “we are pleased with your work and love the energy you give in the office. Your also extremely handsome and I see great potential in you. Here’s a $25 gift card to Walmart.” I would be pissed. What a gift card? If your going to give me $25 at least give me cash so I can spend it on scratch offs.
- What I’ve learned
Well to be honest not much. There are quite a few questions that have been raised because of this email. How did they get my work email? Why me? Is there a mole in my company siphoning off corporate emails to scammers? Sadly, we will never know. I’ve learned that I’m not a gullible as I thought, because I was able to stop a phishing. So, shout out me. There’s a lot that could have gone wrong. As stated before I could have been out $600 dollars.
Hammared 