Email phishing – does anyone still fall for these? #SPAM

Got this email this AM

from Western Union st104624@ait.ac.th
reply-to westernunion.organization@yahoo.com.hk
to date Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 4:02 AM
subject Dear Customer.
mailed-by ait.ac.th
hide details 4:02 AM (2 hours ago)

Dear Esteemed Customer,
You have been awarded with the sum of $50,000.00 US Dollars
by our office, as one of our customers who use Western
Union in their daily business transaction.
This award was been selected through the internet, where
your e-mail address was indicated and notified. Please
provide Mr. David Palmer with the following details
listed below so that your fund will be remitted to you
through Western Union immediately.
* Full Name:
* Sex: Age:
* Martial Status:
* Nationality:
* Country:
* Direct Address:
* Mobile Number:
* Office Number:
* Occupation:

Just wondering – does anyone still fall for this type of phishing.  I mean, some phishing attempts out there are subtle and tricky.   This one, however, is not.  Anyone know – do these really obvious ones ever work?  Or are they just part of the “chatter” that eventually will disappear by natural selection of phishing strategies?
——–
This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

——–
Unknown's avatar

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis

4 thoughts on “Email phishing – does anyone still fall for these? #SPAM”

  1. FWIW our university's IT department still frequently has to lock accounts and reset passwords every time a similar one as these pops up. Worse, they're often “localized” by running them through google translate. So it doesn't even read like official communication.

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  4. Morgan – I should have been clearer. I know some of these scams work. What I was wondering was – are there ones out there that don't work at all? That is, have an effective fitness of zero?

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