It's that time of year again. Scamnesty 2010

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Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

It's the worst named campaign in history with the worst tag-line I have ever heard, but it's now in it's third year, which must be good I suppose.

This year they have an email box to drop your scam into: [email protected]
No, I didn't 1337 that, some bright spark had a cute idea. Someone else please shoot him or her.

There is a toolkit (aimed at local Trading Standards offices) here: http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/scams/672408/scamnesty_toolkit.pdf

The campaign plans: http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/scams/091104_Scamnesty2010_Extern1.pdf

Interestingly, my nearest Scamnesty bin appears to be in a residential back-garden.
Rolling Eyes

Maybe all our characters should drop a dozen or so representative scams into the email bin.

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 5:26 pm

We could dump the entire contents of the surplus in the bin! Wouldn't that get us noticed! Shocked

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 5:32 pm

Quote:

Scamnesty is a national event to raise awareness of scams, whereby local authority Trading Standard Services (TSS) encourage the public to deposit any scam mailings they have received into special bins placed in public areas. The purpose of the deposited scams is primarily to raise awareness, but we are also interested in any new scams which may come to light. There is no promise to investigate individual scams.

So, uh, what exactly do they do? I can print my scam mails out and throw them in a trash can and I'd be just as aware of scams.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

They do get looked at and treated statistically. The TSS' fill in a spreadsheet in March and send it in to the OFT. So the prevalence of various sorts of scams would make an impact, and if we can get them to see that email 419 scams are a very large percentage of the total, that would be better, because they are all but ignoring them at the moment.

Also at least one TSS were refusing email scams last year, even printed out and posted in the bins, so the fact that this year they have an email address has got to be an improvement.

Dropping surplus on them might just make them think they're being bombed. That's why I suggested everyone's characters send a dozen or two in.

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 7:17 pm

didnt read the links, too tired.

So is my understanding correct in saying that if we just forward some of our scam emails (first script) to [email protected] then we are helping create awareness?

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 7:33 pm

The way I understand it is that ,Mr Joe UK-Average, is being asked to forward all his scam/spam to [email protected]

Scamnesty is sponsored by (UK) Consumer Direct.

Because Consumer Direct report to (and form an invisible barrier) to UK Trading Standard (a Government department). I expect they will have a large team of Civil Servants count all the incoming mail over the month; sort it into groups, key the figures into a spreadsheet, upload it into a database, cross index it, tabulate it, and then waste a rain forest printing data that will try and justify their existence.

The end result will be a two sheet report to the Minister of Consumer affairs that says there might be a problem.

Sod it .... I'm going to forward copies of all my Shuttle mail to them.

(did you guess that I've crossed paths with Consumer inDirect about Internet Fraud before ?)

ETA ... they've probably forgotten to turn their spam filters off anyway.

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 6:00 pm

Ther was supposed to be a bin in my local library last year, but I couldn't see it anywhere.
I didn't bother asking. There didn't seem to be any point having one if it wasn't conspicuous.
I've just forwarded one from a Cameroonian lad offering a young lion for adoption.

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 11:53 pm

Well ... I decided to forward a few just to see if anything happened.

The first one went out ok, and I got an auto reply back:-

Quote:

Thank you for your email to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) regarding Fw: Attention: Scam Victim Alert.

We are grateful that you have taken the time to report this information to us. Members of the public report a large number of scams to the OFT each year but we do not have the power to assist or advise consumers on an individual basis. The information is useful to us and we will record it on our database for intelligence purposes and to help us prioritise enforcement and other appropriate action. We will not disclose your personal details to anyone without your consent, but we may use the content of your complaint for publicity or educational purposes.

Please accept this email as acknowledgement of receipt. Also please note that we will only send one acknowledgement per day to your address.

If you would like further information about scams or Scamnesty, or need advice about your consumer rights, visit Consumer Direct's website: http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/scamnesty/

For further information about the OFT visit www.oft.gov.uk

so I send a second ...and Yahoo blocked my account !!!!

Quote:

Your message was not sent

Your account has been temporarily blocked from sending messages. This block can be caused by sending messages that trigger our spam filters, or by having too many recipients in one email. We encourage you to review the contents and recipient list of your message, and try sending it at after an hour or two. Doing so will usually resolve the matter.
If you are still unable to send messages after a 24-hour period, please read our FAQ for more information and to request Customer Care assistance.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

Thanks,

The Yahoo! Mail Team

I wonder how many people out there in 'non-baiting land' have suspended Yahoo accounts ?

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:06 am

just had a look. my nearest bin is 40 miles away Shocked

(i live in south devon). way to go OFT. we have a large elderly population down here and this could of done a lot of good in getting the word out. but oh no anything west of bristol is ignored. typical government spin. Thumbs down

i give it 3 out of 10. could do better.

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:53 pm

Scamnesty finally get round to acknowledging that forwarding spam/scam to them wasn't actually the best thing to do.

But worry not .... they are working with Yahoo on the situation:-

Quote:

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused due to the temporary suspension of some Yahoo email accounts. We are working to try and resolve the situation with Yahoo.

Any email accounts that have been suspended are because spam filters detect that the original email contains spam/scam content and sees that such content it is being resent from the account - therefore suspending the account when the email was forwarded.

If you have received a scam email and would like to tell us about it, please take a screen shot of the email and forward the attachment to [email protected]

Thankyou for supporting Scamnesty.

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:19 pm

I'm reading through this, and I think I'm reading it right, but please correct me if I'm wrong:

They want Joe Public, to print their emails off, then dump it in a bin, far from their house, where sod all will happen to it?

And this is against scammers is it?

How much is this costing the British taxpayer?

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Probably millions.

The stuff they want in the bin is snail-mail scams, and up until this year that is all they were interested in.

I can sort of see their point; they are responsible for enforcing trading standards in the UK. Snail-mail probably originated in this country and may give good intelligence for future enforcement actions. There is nothing they can do to combat email scams that originate abroad.

However, they are the people to go to for scams, period. They should be the ones flagging this up to parliament as a problem and/or producing the government-backed advertising campaign. The trouble is they probably don't have a budget for that, and it's not a vote or prestige winner.

So we have to keep rubbing their noses in it until they take notice. It might take a while.

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:58 pm

Sounds like a "keep yourself in a job" scam to me. Confused

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 3:17 am

government+computer= c**k up.

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