Dumbest, most obvious scam ad you've ever seen?

[RaustBlackDragon]

You know those "you're the 500th viewer today! This is not a trick!" type things? Some of them are so outlandishly stupid that I weep for humanity at the idea that they've ever worked even once. What's the dumbest you've ever seen?

[Husbag3]

Well my gran was offered a free holiday and she was asked to enter all her bank details. £700 was gone in 1 hour but luckily she got it back

[BinoAl]

"Click here for a roman orgy!"
Anyone seen that one? Like that one city building game, but much more blatantly inappropriate in their ads. xD

[Yamboyz1]

I once saw one that said "Congrats! You're the 1,000,000,000th viewer of this page! Click here to win a free iPad!" And then there was a duck hunt like thing but instead of ducks people were shooting iPads.

[PureZaros]

"Click here for a roman orgy!"
Anyone seen that one? Like that one city building game, but much more blatantly inappropriate in their ads. xD

You mean Evony?

I've gotten some of those, but they've mostly been "offers" for claiming some big denomination Wal-mart giftcard.

What I find most funny is when I accidentally misspell youtube.com, I look up realising I did after pressing enter and see this secretdir(ect) thing flash in the address bar. It immediately switches into a "You've been selected for a survey!" or something like that. How obvous... -.-

[Husbag3]

On the computers we have at school, we click on just about every ad that offers us a free ipad or anything of the sort :)

[FlowerChild]

The absolute best one that I've ever seen, was actually an email-trojan that was brilliant in its simplicity and complete reliance on user stupidity.

The email basically read as a concerned friend warning of a virus-scare, and urging the reader to check their windows directory for 'x' file which needed to be immediately deleted. It was of course some obscurely-named windows system file that would cripple your system if you deleted it.

So, I got said email, read it over, got a good chuckle, and of course didn't delete said file.

About a week later though, my girlfriend of the time had her mother (whom I hated with the fire of a thousand burning suns) call our house in a panic.

She had of course received the email (I didn't send it either), deleted the file, and her system was completely fucked.

Oh, how I laughed. So hard in fact that I heard her mother saying loudly over the phone "stop laughing at me!".

I was in the dog-house for awhile with the gf, but it was definitely worth it :)

[ilovekintoki]

[FlowerChild]

Yup, exactly :)

[Shengji]

I've never understood how people fall for those elaborate African bank transfer things, just utterly riddiculous.

This website makes me happy, though I suspect much of it is fake or grossly exaggerated.

[Stormweaver]

A while back I got one where I'd won free breast enhancement surgery. I'm generally conditioned to ignore adverts but that one actually had me grope my chest for a few moments before ignoring it.

[morvelaira]

A while back I got one where I'd won free breast enhancement surgery. I'm generally conditioned to ignore adverts but that one actually had me grope my chest for a few moments before ignoring it.

Ahh, so sort of like my reaction to all those male enhancement advertisements that seem specifically targeted at me. >_>

[Dralnalak]

In my mind, the dumbest ones are the phishing attempts where they claim my Blizzard account or my bank account or some other account has been compromised, but then the English is so bad that you can hardly read it. If they're going to take the time to try and scam gullible people, shouldn't they take the time to make sure that the really stupid ones will understand what they're sending?


Though the absolute funniest one I got along those lines turned out to not be a phishing attempt. It was for a game I had an account with, so I automatically forwarded it on to them so they would know about the phishing attempt. Turns out, it was a real contact from the company and it was just that poorly written. I realized this when I logged into the game next and the same garbled text was waiting for me in the GM section. (Not game mail, a special interface window.) I'm still not sure what they GM was talking about, but I ended up with a free month of the game after that for no apparent reason.

[FlowerChild]

In my mind, the dumbest ones are the phishing attempts where they claim my Blizzard account or my bank account or some other account has been compromised, but then the English is so bad that you can hardly read it. If they're going to take the time to try and scam gullible people, shouldn't they take the time to make sure that the really stupid ones will understand what they're sending?

Maybe a pang of conscience makes them only want the absolute dumbest of people to fall for the scam?

[Stormweaver]

A while back I got one where I'd won free breast enhancement surgery. I'm generally conditioned to ignore adverts but that one actually had me grope my chest for a few moments before ignoring it.

Ahh, so sort of like my reaction to all those male enhancement advertisements that seem specifically targeted at me. >_>

Heh, I just find them entertaining. About a year back I copied the urls of about 30 different pop-up ones, and set them as my best friend's home pages. And I did it manually, with every link to firefox I could find on his computer. There was rage.

[Noodlerex]

closest thing ive had to falling for a scam was when my steam and Skype got simultaneously hacked, stupid thing was the kept telling my dad i was at home and they needed his address, I live with my dad and id gone out for the day.

[DragonFire2876]

ahh scams there everywhere though atm the funnest one im getting regularly (they still havent got the hint where not idiots) is a phone call saying there geting an error repot from windows computer at my house. well i think u all know how stupid this one is so i wont go into detail how ive answered the phone back to them XD

[Sealhunter]

ahh scams there everywhere though atm the funnest one im getting regularly (they still havent got the hint where not idiots) is a phone call saying there geting an error repot from windows computer at my house. well i think u all know how stupid this one is so i wont go into detail how ive answered the phone back to them XD

Yeah, I've gotten that one. They told me to look at the event viewer =D Best one I've seen is in my paper today. "Buy one ticket for $100, two for $250, and five for $500"*. I was definitely thinking about getting two tickets.
*This is just a misprint ;)

[Gilberreke]

I've written an essay on the subject for a college class once. It required extensive research and the biggest company I was able to track down makes over 10 million dollars each year on these scams. If anyone's interested, I might give a small summary on how they are able to generate revenue.

[BigShinyToys]

a while ago telemarketers trying to scam people were calling up saying " we are terribly sorry to tell you that you computer has a virus Please send us X money and we will fix it " So I replied I made the virus And I don't want it gone To witch the person hung up. I loled about that one a a week.

( I Have not actually make a virus For future reference )

I've written an essay on the subject for a college class once. It required extensive research and the biggest company I was able to track down makes over 10 million dollars each year on these scams. If anyone's interested, I might give a small summary on how they are able to generate revenue.

I would reed that. so yes.

[Shengji]

Away from the internet ones, I get a few phone calls a month, claiming to be from my bank or whatever - the scary thing is, they are good enough to be real, their patter is spot on, not offering anything outrageously generous etc

Then the stupid bit, they ask for my security details before they can access my account - confirm my name, address, password etc.

Without exception (well one exception, I'll get to that) I ask them that as they phoned me, they really need to prove that they are who they say they are and can they confirm a few details - what is my password, what is the phone number to get through to them, their HQ address and the address of the building they are in now - of course they refuse!

The exception - I fed them false details and surprise surprise, they managed to log into my fake account just fine - proof enough for me that they are scammers.

What's scary though, some companies do this legitimately without thought to the security issues.

Another stupid thing done by a legitimate company was a company trying to gather data on the population of the UK - they left a bag on your doorstep with a huge questionnaire inside, you fill it out and put it on your doorstep that evening - they collect them in the morning and leave you an expensive bar of chocolate.

I warned all my friends not to do this as firstly they would end up drowned in junk mail and secondly because of what happened next.

Gangs roamed the streets, collecting the bags for themselves and the questionnaires contained enough information for them to completely assume your identity!!

[Gilberreke]

( I Have not actually make a virus For future reference )

I have.

I may not have always been a benevolent spirit on the internet. That might be all I'm willing to divulge on the subject.

[Sealhunter]

I have.

I may not have always been a benevolent spirit on the internet. That might be all I'm willing to divulge on the subject.

I particularly like the harmless ones that have all you files scroll by at top speed so it looks like they're getting deleted. Made me quite distressed the first time I encountered one (my friend wrote it as an April Fool's) =)

Edit: Btw, I'd take a look at that paper. Sounds interesting.

[Rugaard]

i get mostly account hijacker scams where they are telling me that they have noticed I'm selling my account, usually i would expect this for wow and other such large mmos, however recently I've been getting them mostly for Runescape, amusingly enough i haven't played it in almost 8 years

[morvelaira]

i get mostly account hijacker scams where they are telling me that they have noticed I'm selling my account, usually i would expect this for wow and other such large mmos, however recently I've been getting them mostly for Runescape, amusingly enough i haven't played it in almost 8 years

What's really sad is I've gotten emails like this for games I've never played.