At ISPreview.co.uk our inbox receives a lot of sometimes pointless emails, usually from marketing folk or clever spammers. Indeed lately I've gotten use to spammers using increasingly sophistical physiological / social engineering techniques and so at first I wasn't sure if the following message fell into that category, although after further checking I resolved that it appeared to be from a real person and company.
Normally I would never post private mails but this one was so ridiculous that it just had to be shared (personal specifics redacted). In many ways I was left hoping that it was fake because otherwise the company needs to take a serious look at its methods.
So just to re-cap, I received a somewhat random email asking if I had paid several hundred pounds into a Shetland based firms bank account. Apparently the firm couldn't identify who the reference of "M & C Jackson" on the payment was and so, astonishingly, opted to trawl the internet "to locate Mark Jackson's"
. Seriously.
After reading that I began to chuckle but it was only when the message added that they were "struggling to find" people with my name online that this up-scaled into literal tears of laughter :laugh:.
Google seems to have no trouble finding 493 million results about people with the same name and there must be tens of thousands in the UK alone, although it's not even clear if "Mark Jackson" is the right "Jackson" they're looking for as the reference to "M & C" on their payment doesn't state a full first name.
I wished them luck in their efforts to contact the next few thousand people with the same name and Ian duly apologized for any inconvenience, before admitting that it was "way too much to hope for we would hit it right - will have to try some other way to find the right person". No kidding. Hopefully next time they will start by not revealing their internal company transactions to any old joe with the same name
.
Normally I would never post private mails but this one was so ridiculous that it just had to be shared (personal specifics redacted). In many ways I was left hoping that it was fake because otherwise the company needs to take a serious look at its methods.
SUBJECT: Payment received by us from Mark Jackson
Hi Mark
I don't know if I have contacted the right person but we have been paid a sum of money from a Mark Jackson additional reference M & C Jackson - £***.** by direct credit into our bank on the **th December 2012 - can you confirm that this was yourself? If so can you identify why you paid **************** Ltd, formerly *************** Ltd.
I apologise if this has nothing to do with you but we have tried to locate Mark Jackson's and we are struggling to find them!
regards
Ian ************
*******************
*********** ***
So just to re-cap, I received a somewhat random email asking if I had paid several hundred pounds into a Shetland based firms bank account. Apparently the firm couldn't identify who the reference of "M & C Jackson" on the payment was and so, astonishingly, opted to trawl the internet "to locate Mark Jackson's"
After reading that I began to chuckle but it was only when the message added that they were "struggling to find" people with my name online that this up-scaled into literal tears of laughter :laugh:.
Google seems to have no trouble finding 493 million results about people with the same name and there must be tens of thousands in the UK alone, although it's not even clear if "Mark Jackson" is the right "Jackson" they're looking for as the reference to "M & C" on their payment doesn't state a full first name.
I wished them luck in their efforts to contact the next few thousand people with the same name and Ian duly apologized for any inconvenience, before admitting that it was "way too much to hope for we would hit it right - will have to try some other way to find the right person". No kidding. Hopefully next time they will start by not revealing their internal company transactions to any old joe with the same name























