Filed under: General
Apparently phishers are going old school and have moved to snail mail. A couple weeks ago I received a snail mail phishing letter. A letter with page one that just happened to be missing, and page two that started:
Pg. 2
claim what is rightfully yours. Please call me immediately, toll free, at 1-800-571-7533 ext. 2563. This servie is being provided as a courtesy. Free of charge. *Sincerely,
Michael Young
Finance ManagerMy/cg
cc:File 12114299-0* Our service will be available until March 31, 2005. If material is not claimed by that time all proceeds will rever to R.S.I.
The envelope was hand addressed and had a return address of:
R.S.I.
P.O. Box 1561
Vacaville, CA 95696
Here’s a photo of the phising envelope, and photo of phishing letter.
I decided to call the number to see if I could figure out who was behind it. It was a voicemail system. The recording conveniently failed to mention the business name. Entered the handwritten extension, and it said, “Sorry neither of us are available, leave us your info and we’ll call you back.”. So I called back and entered other random extension numbers and got the same message.
Sending a million phishing emails is one thing, but actually paying for postage and hand addressing envelopes shows some real dedication to scumbaggery.
On a related note of scumbaggery, my own bank, that I trust with my money, continues to move further and further down my list of respected businesses. They’ve been sending me this crap in the mail to get me to sign up for another credit card. It is bad enough to spam your own customers, but what’s worse is that the front of the envelope says in red letters, “Important Information Enclosed”. (photo) I’m forced to open it because they put the same of warning on things like tax forms, replacement bank cards etc. I called them up and politely told them to stop sending me this crap. The nice lady took my information, informed me it would take up to 90 days to stop receiving it, and then before saying goodbye, said, “I have to ask, are you sure you don’t want to sign up for this WorldPoints credit card, because it is a great deal… yadda yadda yadda”.
Update: One of the commenters suggested that this is a repo service for Volkswagen. I don’t own a Volkswagen (and own both my cars out right).
6 Comments so far
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got the same rsi letter, went to google and put in rsi vacaville — wouldn’t you know, my page one was missing, too!!
i say we flood the 800# and let them pay for it!
I got a similar letter today. Thought it was rather strange. Let google help me — and I find a fellow customer on the RSI mailing list. Thank you for saving me the phone call.
Comment by Bonnie 06.18.05 @ 4:05 pmR.S.I. is a cover for some type of collection/repo company for Volkswagon. You can get the same message by calling (888) 311-6257. Don’t know how they get around the law, but R.S.I. is a ruse to get someone to call in and then this company will either trace call (always use *67) or get an address where they can find the person that called in. NEVER CALL THE PHONE NUMBER, MOREOVER, ANY MAIL WITH R.S.I., MARK AS RETUN TO SENDER WITHOUT A FORWARD ADDRESS.
This company will stoop to anything to get information on you. All they want to do is find you for the purposes of collections or trying to repo your car.
Comment by Eddie 10.31.05 @ 3:59 pmI got the same letter too and my first page was missing too!
Comment by cristine 08.31.07 @ 1:12 pmI got it to it was weird I was hoping that I had something to claim. Then reality kicked in and I googled to this page. I did call and got the same message. My numbers not on a call list is it?
Comment by art 10.18.07 @ 8:12 pmIts funny that the previous comments are posted 3 yrs ago, well I just got the same letter not that long ago, so I guess whatever Michael Young is doing is working hahaha.
Comment by Ian 08.25.08 @ 6:52 pmLeave a comment
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