[continued from previous message]

"I was puzzled that someone thought it worthwhile to capitalize on this tiny mistake, as who even *reads* the printed tag inside an oven, no less *calls* the printed phone number?"

Well, you did, didn't you?

------------------------------

Date: 12 Aug 2023 14:23:22 -0400
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Possible Typo Leads to Actual Scam (Smith, RISKS-33.77)

A friend with long experience in the phone business tells me that a whole
lot of them go to dubious companies selling phone porn, on the off chance
that someone dialing a wrong number might be interested.

The basic cost for a toll free number is very low, like a dollar a month, so there's basically no opportunity cost to this scam. I expect the people answering the phone have a whole catalog of scripts depending on what number you called.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 15:01:36 -0400
From: Dick Mills <dickandlibbymills@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Possible Typo Leads to Actual Scam

I was curious about the "800-374-4432, not -4472" scam, so I did a search
on the "bad" number.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=800-374-4472

At the bottom of the search results, it said "Searches related to
800-374-4472" and then gave 8 links to actual Frigidaire sites. But all 8 sites give the 4432 number, and don't mention 4472.

I don't claim to understand how or why those two numbers are linked but apparently the search engine thinks that they are linked.

There must be more to the story.

[Maybe the Robo-Wabbit thought it was a Westinghouse. PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2023 19:23:29 +0000
From: Jay Libove Alzina <libove@felines.org>
Subject: Re: "Possible Typo Leads to Actual Scam"
(Smith, RISKS-33.77)

In re: Bob's mention in RISKS Digest Volume 33 Issue 77, I mentioned this in
an old Internet farts like me group on Facebook, and the eminent Jon Maddog Hall wisely commented the following: "It seems to me that this should be reported to a consumer fraud division of the government and not just the appliance company. It would be easy enough to track down the people who are paying for that telephone number." Good point. Even if the miscreants are geographically beyond reach, it should be pretty straightforward for authorities to get this phone number pulled, so that no other consumer potentially gets scammed by the manufacturer's mind-bogglingly stupid
mistake.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2023 22:22:08 -0600
From: Matthew Kruk <mkrukg@gmail.com>
Subject: Elon Musk's Unmatched Power in the Stars
(NYTimes)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/28/business/starlink.html

The tech billionaire has become the dominant power in satellite Internet technology. The ways he is wielding that influence are raising global
alarms.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2023 16:59:20 -0500
From: "Gavin Scott" <gbs@me.com>
Subject: Elon wants my cryptos!

YouTube just recommended a live SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch stream to me, so
I opened it up to run in the background here.

The fact that it was dark in Florita at 5pm probably should have tipped me
off (I did look at the channel name in the small recommendation tile but all
I saw there was "SpaceX" as expected).

It goes along quite believably (it's just an exact rebroadcast of the
aborted launch attempt from yesterday) and then about three minutes before liftoff, Elon comes out on stage and (in a mostly obvious, but not ENTIRELY
so, AI Elon Voice Clone) announces Total Crypto Integration into Twitter and
in celebration of this announcement he's going to give away a whole bunch of crypto (Bitcoin/ETH/DOGE) to promote it. Of course then it just turns into a classic "double your money" con (and a bonus "why don't you just use our
site to duplicate your wallet" scam for the terminally gullible).

It's honestly fairly impressive though in its planning/timing and attention
to detail, and I fear that at least a few of the 1,300+ people watching are about to become poorer as a result.

I think the (several) risks here ought to be, as it were, obvious.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2023 11:11:11 -0800
From: RISKS-request@csl.sri.com
Subject: Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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------------------------------

End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 33.78
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