News You Can Bruise for 2005 May 24

Permalink [Comments] (2) Tue May 24 2005 15:12 become one of the low rates:

Continuing my interest in mortgage spam. About 90% (or, perhaps, 3.77%) of the recent mortgage spam I've seen tries to give the impression that this is a follow-up to some earlier missed connection. For instance, from the most recent specimen to get past my filters: "We tried to contact you earlier about flnanclng your home at a lower rate."

Why is this such a common feature of mortgage spam? Are they trying to trick the people who are trying to get a mortgage but haven't heard back from the bank? A sort of phishing applied to customer poaching?

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Comments:

Posted by Kevan at Wed May 25 2005 06:14

I'm still waiting for a proper Internet version of the Absent-Minded Coterie scam, perhaps through online personality tests.

Posted by Leonard at Thu May 26 2005 00:26

Civilization has descended into a sufficient state of barbarism that that scam is now a pretty common business practice: you see it with phone service, credit cards, etc. I think the reason it hasn't been personalized is that it's now so easy to do it wholesale.

Also, I know I'd read the first part of that story before, but none of the rest was familiar, and I'd never heard of that author. Weird.

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