At least 3.4 billion fake emails are sent around the world every day according to Security Magazine. These account for untold millions of losses due to online scams.
Historically, the "Nigerian Prince" scam is one of the most popular. It typically involves the fraudster promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment. Once the fraudster gets the money they either disappear or continue to concoct more scanrios to fleece the victim.
This scam dates back hundreds of years when scammers would contact businesses asking for money to get a wealthy relative out of a Spanish prison.
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, a serial entrepreneur who is the founder of The Next Web tech events, shared how he fights back against scammers, and it's pretty brilliant. He created a fake company called Nordic Procurement and when the scammer emails it, they're sucked into a time-consuming rabbit hole of out-of-the-office replies.
The point is to waste as much of the scammer's time as possible so they prey on fewer people.
Nordic Procurement has a pretty funny tagline: "The only value of wasted time is knowledge. Stop wasting time, start trusting Nordic Procurement Services." A procurement company takes over a company's dealings with outside vendors and tries to come up with favorable terms.
Scammers who find themselves dealing with Nordic Procurement will soon learn that there is a lot of red tape in the industry.
Boris created a scammer trap, Nordic Procurement Services.
After its initial success, Boris is looking for ways to scale and automate and his anti-scammer strategy.
When you email John you get a lot of emojis and sales guy talk and a ton of disclaimers.
Hi there, great to have established first contact and here's to making
lots and lots of money together! ? ? ? ? ??
Unfortunately, I can't send you the Request Form just yet, as we are
still awaiting your company registration information and will need a
copy of your passport or driver's license to verify your identity.
Apparently those attachments we're lost somewhere, which Helena
apparently already notified you about. Maybe you missed that one.
Or it is our antiquated email system that deleted them, you never know! ? ? ?
Anyway, please scan the original documents and attach them to an email
and send that to helena@noprocurement.com. As soon as I receive word
that the documents have been received, I'll send you the request form
so we can be in business.
If you haven't heard from me in a week or two, feel free to reach out
again, my inbox is open for you 24/7, and I tend to reply within 72
hours. Have an amazing day!!!! ABC (Always be closing), make it rain,
mo money more problems!
Lots of LOLZ,
John Negroni
Proud and ambitious junior account manager
Nordic Procurement Services, all the way boyzzzzz
?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??
?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??
Disclaimer: The information contained in this e-mail communication is
solely intended for the person to whom it has been sent. If someone
other than the intended recipient should receive or come into
possession of this e-mail communication, he/she will not be entitled
to read, disseminate, disclose or duplicate it.
!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!
If you are not the intended recipient, you are requested to inform
Nordic Procurement of this by replying to this message, and to destroy
the original e-mail communication. Nordic Procurement, registered in
the Commercial Register under number 198273680, is neither liable for
the correct and complete transmission of the information contained in
this e-mail communication nor for any delay in its receipt.
!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!
Privacy notice: We are used to dealing with confidential information
and understand that protecting your privacy is key to building and
maintaining good relations. We are doing the utmost to use the
information that has been trusted to us in the right way. Nordic
Procurement is a part of Nordic Procurement plc, and complies with the
policies from Nordic Procurement. You can check our Privacy Statement
on the Nordic Procurement website as well as on our own website.
!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!
Boris was inspired to build his scammer trap by "Lenny," a chatbot created to create a telemarketer's worst nightmare. When a scammer is sent to the bot they speak with an old man who talks very slowly, is very proud of his family, and can't focus on the telemarketer's goal.
In this video clip below, Lenny eventually drives the scammer crazy:
This article originally appeared on 02.20.21.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.