The Email Wars

I got this email today. It slid right past our systems and into my inbox. I was a little confused as I have not bought anything from BestBuy.com recently. If I was a neo in this world of email, I would have actually called or clicked on the “PDF” which was actually an EXE file. Not a fun thought if I had checked it out more of what it would have done. I immediately looked at the header files in the email and saw that it was not from BestBuy.com at all but some server farm in Asia with a little reverse DNS/IP look up.

These type of emails drive me nuts. They are killing trust. What are your thoughts?

Dear Customer,

Thank you for ordering from our internet shop. If you paid with a credit card, the charge on your statement will be from name of our shop.

This email is to confirm the receipt of your order. Please do not reply as this email was sent from our automated confirmation system.

Date : 08 Oct 2006 - 12:40
Order ID : 37679041

Payment by Credit card
Product : Quantity : Price
WJM-PSP - Sony VAIO SZ370 C2D T7200 : 1 : 2,449.99
Subtotal : 2,449.99
Shipping : 32.88
TOTAL : 2,482.87

Your Order Summary located in the attachment file ( self-extracting archive with “37679041.pdf” file ).

PDF (Portable Document Format) files are created by Adobe Acrobat software and can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
If you do not already have this viewer configured on a local drive, you may download it for free from Adobe’s Web site.

We will ship your order from the warehouse nearest to you that has your items in stock (NY, TN, UT & CA). We strive to ship all orders the same day, but please allow 24hrs for processing.

You will receive another email with tracking information soon.

We hope you enjoy your order! Thank you for shopping with us!