[Spambayes] Exceptionally well-done identity-theft spam

[Tim Peters]

[Seth Goodman]
> I get these all the time, as well as an equally good knock-off of an
> eBay administrative message.

I never use eBay, so I've trained on those as spam.  I do use PayPal pretty
frequently, though, so get plenty of ham from them.

> I report them each time I get one to either PayPal or eBay, but they
> apparently just play whack-a-mole rather than actually going after
> the senders.  This is unfortunate, since this is criminal activity,
> not just spam.

Realistically, what can they do?  I tracked the IP in yesterday's scam to a
tiny (32 addresses total) net block in Korea, assigned just a few days ago.
Today that site has already been shut down.  While I don't know, I *bet* the
ISP hosting the site was paid with a fraudulently-obtained credit card
number, or (given that it's Korea ...) maybe even cash.  The scammers are
long gone by now, leaving their ISP with a diminished reputation.  I'm only
glad I didn't give them my real ATM PIN <wink>.