How dumb do spammer thieves think we are?

Maybe the question should be: how dumb are spammer thieves? Those behind mass emails who try to get unwitting Internet users to give up their personal information for illegal gain. Some of these emails, granted, are quite conniving, clever and, moreover, dangerous. Others, like the one I received Wednesday, come from people who really and truly must be as dumb as a plastic bag. I have attached, word for word, exactly what came to me in yesterday's email. See if you can find the bevy of errors and then ask yourself: Would I ever want to be conned by the criminal mastermind behind this missive?

Dear grandecom.net Email Account Owner,

This message is from grandecom.net messaging center to all grandecom.net email account user. We are currently upgrading our database and e-mail account center. We are deleting all unused grandecom.net  email account to create more space for new accounts.

To prevent your account from closing you will have to update it below so that we will know that it's a present used account. (You are to send the information below to enable us

RECONFIRM YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT and for Upgrading)

Email Username : (***********)
EMAIL Password : (***********)
Date of Birth  : (***********)


Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his/her account within 24 hours of this warning notice we are afraid you will have to lose your account permanently.

Thank you for using grandecom.net!

Warning Code:VX2G99AAJ

Thanks
grandecom.net
Support Team

Umm, where to start. I don't know, if my objective was to excel at online identity theft, I might become just a littttttle bit more familiar with the English language so as to sound somewhat more believable:

Account owner that refuses to update his/her account within 24 hours of this warning notice we are afraid you will have to lose your account permanently. (

Who wrote that, Yoda?

It also might be somewhat helpful for would-be online pirates if they could correctly identify the singular from the plural:

This message is from grandecom.net messaging center to all grandecom.net email account user. We are deleting all unused grandecom.net  email account to create more space for new accounts.

It would also be more convincing if these brainiacs could somehow distinguish between adverbs and just your run-of-the-mill adjectives: 

To prevent your account from closing you will have to update it below so that we will know that it's a present used account.

Also necessary: remembering to include all words in a sentence, and maybe even proper sentence-ending punctuation so we could tell when you're done with your train of thought. Further, unnecessary line breaks can also be a pretty good sign of an amateur driving the keyboard:

(You are to send the information below to enable us

RECONFIRM YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT and for Upgrading) 

And finally, follow through. Threatening to discontinue service in 24 hours is only effective if you actually discontinue service in 24 hours.

Account owner that refuses to update his/her account within 24 hours of this warning notice we are afraid you will have to lose your account permanently.

Internet theft is real and serious. So is sounding like an idiot. Don't fall victim to any Internet scam. Be watchful of them all but particularly ones run by total bird brains.

Comments

[Geo]

The tipoff is that there was no eight figure sum of US dollars that they wanted to put into your bank account.

But seriously, Grandecom may have an anti-fraud email address where they would like for people to send these so then can try to track down the culprits.

[Peggy]

The problem is that, increasingly, many computer users are not as well educated as you are and ESL computer users, with mediocre English grammar skills, might not pick up on these incorrect grammar clues. I know my Chinese friends with their new computer couldn't. That's why spammars continue their trickery -- it sometimes works.

[Jimmy]

Peggy, thanks for that, it makes unfortunate sense.

George ... I'll look into forwarding this to Grande today, you're right. Interesting, thorough, good trial coverage, by the way.

[Wallace]

What happened when you sent your information in??