Sunday, August 14, 2011

I’m not saying she’s a Goldfarmer…

Occasionally, I’ll venture into my junk e-mail folder to see if anything has fallen through the cracks, and I’ll see e-mails from this man:

Kim Jong Il. Or at least someone with the same grasp on the Engrish language.

“Der Players
You've been summoned back to Azeroth. Experience all of the new and exciting content that's been added to World of Warcraft? In the 4.2 game, Rise of the Zandalari, with 7 FREE days of game time for your account. Maybe you have experience. Simply (…) below to claim your free time... but act fast, as this limited-time offer will expire soon and friends in the game interaction.”

You see, I played WoW for a time. I wasn’t particularly good at it, and I quit. Why would I pay a monthly subscription fee when there’s so many things I could suck at for free? Still, constantly receive these e-mails from Goldfarmers trying to phish my account.

“Greetings!
When you take to the skies astride a blazing, eagle-winged lion, your comrades will know you mean business. Serious business. So saddle up, because this flying mount will travel as fast as your riding skill will take you, and it can even travel at 310% speed if you have at least one other 310% speed mount.

Once activated, this World of Warcraft in-game pet key applies to all present and future characters on a single World of Warcraft license.

we will be complimentary seat to the 5,000 players. You can log Web site application, we will be lucky players randomly.
Please click this link to apply”

Each e-mail includes a very dubious link. Should I click it, it would no doubt send me to a look-alike site where it would ask me to log in. Logging in is very crucial to their evil plan. Once they have my name and password, neither of which I can even remember anymore, they would hijack my account and then… What exactly? Like I said, I suck at Warcraft. Any gear my character has is garbage. It’d be like robbing a homeless person. I have no idea what my loot would go for in the secondary Goldfarming market, but I’m guessing it’d be less than one dollar American. Way to go, North Korea. You’re one step closer to buying that WMD.

The saddest part is how much effort they clearly try to put into making it all seem legit, and then they fuck up the grammar. I can’t tell if they’re being stupid, because a convoluted plan involving phishing into player accounts just so they can rob a virtual people and turn their in-game items into real-world money doesn’t seem entirely stupid. Seriously, if you can take virtual money and turn it into real cash, then you’re a fucking evil genius. Why do they include the bad grammar and typos, then? Is it so they can make fun of the people who do fall for these scams? Do they not spell-check their own spam? Are they already using their Engrish skill to the max, superfuntime? Or maybe there’s some poor kid in North Korea writing all these with a gun to his head, and he slips in these errors because he feels guilty about what he’s being forced to do? “Prease ret them notice my ellols,” he whispers under his breath, before his head is blown off by his cruel overseer and another boy is brought in.

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