Holiday Season Spam
When I looked into one of our spam traps, one mail caught my eye: It was promising an expensive holiday trip to Turkey nearly for free, and I could even take 3 more persons with me! The trip is allegedly worth 1256,- Euros, so that would be quite a bang for a buck.
Fig. 1: The spam mail is baiting with a cheap holiday trip.
An access code in the mail should make the “win” look more serious – win? Yes, the mail claims that my mail address got chosen at a drawing amongst several service platforms. Strange thing is though that the mail address was never used to take part at anything, to register anywhere or even to order something.
The web address given in the mail is redirecting to another web site. This is another sign that something isn’t quite right with this “win”. At least on that web site the asterisks behind some inclusive offers get resolved (they aren’t in the spam mail). For all those nice trips the entrance fees – which can sum up to a few hundred Euros very fast – are not included. Also there is an explanation that you have to pay a “booking fee” of 49 Euros per person. How much those kerosin fees and taxes are, which also aren’t included, is missing as well.
Fig. 2: Some details of the "deal" are available at the spammed web site.
Overall this isn’t a real offer. The spammers are trying to make the offer look cheap, but in the end you pay a few hundreds Euros for getting some round trips with visits at carpet factories, jewelry outlets and so on – where you are supposed to buy stuff again.
One reason not to book such a journey is that it is advertised with spam. The other reason is that the costs aren’t clear. Please don’t fall for such offers and stop your friends and relatives who want to try it anyway.
Dirk Knop
Technical Editor
The Avira Team wishes you a happy new year! May the new year be successfull for you!
All Avira team members wish you a Merry Christmas! We hope that you had a successfull, malware-free year 2008 and that you can enjoy some days with your family and your beloved ones.