Platehead.com's SPAM E-Mail

Tuesday, August 7, 2012:  Just as the monsoon flood is threatening the safety of thousands of people in Metro Manila (read my post and check the photos on this LINK), I'm in my room managing my worries and praying that the flood water does not go further beyond the gates outside.  The muddy flood water which greeted me that morning was made worse by the rain that went on through the day.  And as I monitor the happenings in the country, I also went through my e-mails and saw a really nice offer for a "web content writer" position.  I scanned the message and made a mental note to attend to it as soon as the monsoon flood situation becomes stable.

     Here's the full copy of that e-mail:

From: writers@platehead.com
To: yourlook2day@yahoo.com

Hello Michael X. XXXXXXXXX

We are looking for committed individuals to add to our team as internet marketing assistants/Virtual Assistants/Web content writers/copywriters

Job description:

You will be given a wide array of internet marketing related tasks and projects, especially search engine optimization work.
Tasks would include writing blog posts, publishing articles, web development, creating joint ventures with other websites, etc.

Skills required:

You must be fluent in written and conversant in the English language
You must be proficient with web-mailing, browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, etc.
Experience with building/managing websites and HTML,CSS,PHP, etc. are preferred.
Internet marketing experience preferred, but not required.
College degree preferred, but not required.
"Willingness to learn new skills useful for Internet marketing"

Pay:

13000-14000 per month starting pay.

How to apply:

Please submit atleast 1 article about "Information Security & Techonology" to writers@platehead.com

This job is 3 hours a day and 5 days a week we offer high compensation for qualified employees.


Thanks 

     Sounds legit, right?  Aside from some typo errors (i.e. missing punctuations and incorrect spelling), all seems to be in order.  But boy, was I in for a great surprise...

Thursday, August 9, 2012:  The sun is up and although the flood has gotten worse in my area, the situation has become more or less stable.  And so while there's nothing much to do as I'm trapped inside my apartment, I went back to that e-mail and started researching and reading on the topic.  I was thinking of a clever way to discuss the article when I decided to visit platehead's site to gauge what sort of materials they write about and the manner/style by which they present them.  This is what I saw:

     Huh, so OK, it's SPAM -- I guess the type which can't be eaten.  Somebody hacked the site's e-mail and just went on an emailing spree spreading that bogus job offer?  I'm not an expert on SEO and all that technical stuff, but if every blogger who receives the scam e-mail reacted the same way I did, that can GIVE the site a fair amount of traffic.  I must say, whoever hacked their system is giving platehead.com some advantage.  LOL!

     Another thing, other recipients of the scam e-mail may have prepared the requirement they're asking to submit.  And whoever will get serious with their application will aim to produce a fine reading article and submit them.  If that happens, that's like writing for them free of charge -- and the material they've submitted can either be published, dissected to get ideas from, re-arranged -- well, you get what I mean.  And then later, they'll tell the applicant that they did not qualify and somebody else already got the position.  Very clever eh?  I'm not pointing any fingers here, but I'm sure you do get the point.

     It's also kinda weird the way they used my real complete name to address me on the e-mail.  Though I use my complete full name on my blog's author tag, other recipients of this platehead.com's scam e-mail who rarely disclose or have never used their complete full name even on their blogs were mystified as to who has access to their records and private information.  Some of them, through process of elimination, are already having ideas on who have given away their contact information.  And true enough, when I checked my record on one of these alleged sites, my name is written exactly the way it was on the e-mail.  Mmmm...

     Anyway, like what platehead.com said on their website, "Evil-Email-Spammer we hope the bird of  paradise  flies up your nose" -- I on the other hand hopes that all of the flood here in Pasig will fly up that spammer's nose -- and a**.  Well, if it isn't too much to ask. ☺

     See you on my next wandering!