We don’t know too much about the inner workings of the Groupon office, but we are pretty darn sure they comb over every single emailed offer and would never spell discount as “dicount. Watch out if you get an email purporting to be from the company offering “Groupon dicount gifts” — it’s malware.
Security form Sophos says Groupon’s trusted reputation is being used to proliferate malware, with the aforementioned spelling-challenged subject line, followed by an email liberally sprinkled with more interesting interpretations of the English language.
“Now Groupon.com gives an opportunity to share a discount gift with a friend!” the reports PCMag.com. “Enjoy your discount gift in the attachement and share it with one of your friend as well.” Then there’s the warning, “Be in a hurry,” as the weekend special is “due” in two days.
Don’t actually hurry to share that, as it contains an attachment called “Gift coupon.zip” that has a Trjan virus designed to go hog wild on Windows computers.
If the spelling mistakes slip past careful readers, the email might look real, as it includes a Groupon company logo, green border and the ads at the bottom that are so familiar in Groupon emails.
Sophos warns people to pay close attention to any emails and make sure your anti-virus software is up to date.
“It’s easy for anyone to make a professional-looking email using the branding of a well-established website in their attempt to lure you into opening an attached file or clicking on a dangerous web link,” Sophos’ consultant Graham Cluley.
Malware Hidden in Fake Groupon Email [PCMag.com]
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That spelling is actually better than what most of the population can manage these days.
…a “Trjan virus?”
No problem. I’ll just pull a Trjan condom over my monitor and it should be fine.
/irony of making fun of bad spelling in spam and then doing it yourself in your own article.
It won’t slip past careful readers!
we are pretty darn sure they comb over every single emailed offer and would never spell discount as “dicount. – Yet Mary Beth will over look the closing quote and as noted by others, make other various mistakes.
overlook. It’s one word.
(I tried to keep this post terse to avoid making grammatical mistakes myself, but I’m certain one will surface.)
Curse the lack of an edit button! I knew I should have referenced that word prior to breaking it up.
How long was commenting down? 2 weeks? There were typos…no snarky know it all pointed them all out, and yet the sun continues to rise and the earth continues to spin. Can we move on from commenting about typos already?
It’s appropriate in this case since the gist of the OP is that you can discern scam emails by the fact that they contain spelling errors.
Fortunately, native speakers of English are pretty much perfect in their spelling.
Security form Sophos says…
Never mind…
As is my html…
Damn edit-less button.
This is fun.
I have come to call it the “Less edit” button
I used my sacred comment-editing powers and took out your erroneous tags. Now this thread is just really confusing.
Why should it be any different???
Skitt’s Law strikes again!
Is there a way to contact the author to spelling errors in articles rather then having to post in the comments?
“Security form Sophos says Groupon’s trusted reputation”
I guess this is rather ironic considering the title but I’d rather send a quick PM. I assume it’s “security firm”.
The best way to report typos is to e-mail us. My e-mail address is my first name at consumerist dot com; the others are their last names.
Or you could pretend to be a real journalist and spend the 2.5 seconds it takes to use the SPELLCHECK button. Computers have had that feature for a while now. It’s pretty shameful that places like even CNN and ABC News are no longer even using spellcheck, I see tyops and grammar errors almost ever day, no exaggeration.
Haha, tyops. Ah well, at least I’m not making mistakes while being paid. Of course, that also goes to show that Consumerist doesn’t have spellcheck or an EDIT button. Shame.
Wow do you have to be such an asshole about it, really? There’s a better way to get your point across, and with some class while you’re at it. You obviously seem to keep on coming back so you are getting significant value for what could be many years and all for free and without ads so your sense of entitlement amounts to nothing more then being juvenile.
Continuing with the ironic theme it’s typos not “tyops” bro.
You see tyops, I see dumb people. Chill the f%ck out.
I like to take these , when I get them, and open up the attachment in a Virtual Machine just to see what happens.
Just wish they had some deals…. have not bought one in abut 6 months. Always crap food places, and massages. Thinking of unsubcribing soon.