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Going under the moniker of The Support Team (don’t know which team or company), the (these unrelentless Scammers, or in this case Phishers) will send you an email with the subject ‘Attn Subscriber’ (they didn’t even bother to spell out attention), along with a body text like this:

Dear SINGNET Subscriber1,

This mail is to inform all our SINGNET users
that we will be maintaining and upgrading
our website in a couple of days from now2.As
a Subscriber you are required to send us
your Email account details to enable us know
if you are still making use of your mailbox.

Be informed that we will be deleting all
mail accounts that is not functioning3 to
enable us create more space for new
subscribers, You are to send your mail
account details which are as follows:

Username:
Password:

Failure to do this will immediately render
your email address deactivated4
from our
database.

Thank you for using SINGNET
From The Support Team5

Woah! Credit to whoever copyrighted this crop of text because at first glance it can be totally deceiving and forceful, and I will attempt once more utilising my ultra scam awareness skills which I have since levelled up to a higher level ever since Bidpax.com tried to hook me.

1 No reputable online business would address their valuable customers via a generic noun whenever a critical change is inevitable. In any case, any real online business SHOULD attempt to contact their customers via their first names, at the very least, as this creates an emotional bond and not appear as a scam. And this email I received brutally failed the scam test with only their first sentence.

2 When exactly is that? Tomorrow? Three days later? Being a Singaporean, I would naturally want to delay giving you my details until the very last day, just like how most of us only give our homeworks full attention on the night before submission day or like how we will queue to replace our old ez-link cards only on the final day, and then proceed to whine that we didn’t know earlier or didn’t have the time. Too bad, oh dear Scammer, but I want to be able to complain and you’re not giving me the time.

3 You mean by being able to receive your email finely and simply by not replying, that it isn’t functioning? Even though my customers and friends are able to receive my emails perfectly and if I don’t reply to you that it isn’t functioning? Okay, I’ll reply then, but when’s the deadline huh?

4 ‘Render your email address deactivated’. Actually there’s not much wrong with this line except that I find the words used to convey the message a little amusing. Anyway, deactivate it for all I care. I’ll just complain back stating how you never gave me any deadline so I didn’t knew that my time was up! No fair I say, no fair!

5 Signing off as a generic name in just too generic. This is definitely a sure-fire sign of a Scammer/Phisher as there’s no real name/contact details. Ooh, so busted!

There you go, Scammers or Phishers at work and me trying to teach them how to write better copy you how to avoid stuffs like these.

I’m amazed that there are still conmen (or conwomen, or conpeople) still phishing around for stuffs or information like these, so outdated and so bo liao (hokkien for, and loosely translated, ‘nothing better to do’.

I’m definitely replying to them, not with my account details, but with a few friendly words, because since it’s the second time that I’m on the receiving on of such mails, something needs to be done.

And this email address is from focuspm@singnet.com.sg, but strangely when I hit reply, the address is now maintananceteam_engi01@msn.com.

Stramge, and anyway do note that I didn’t hide these addresses, so that any spambots scanning my pages for an email address will catch these, and hopefully volley back with a dose of their own medicine.

Ahh, sweet revenge.