An Internet Scam That Amused Me

(This is a rather pointless post. But the subject amused me so here it is.)
Here in New Zealand we have what’s known as a “cultural cringe”. It’s basically a national inferiority complex. We’re famous for getting overexcited when celebrities know our country exists, and for being a bit ashamed of our own cultural production. We crave the validation of big important foreigners. The cringe still exists, although the fact we’ve teamed up with the Aussies to pretty much take over Hollywood in the last decade alleviates some of the anxiety.
Which is a longwinded way of expressing my odd pleasure when I stumbled upon a scam site disguised as a blog. It appeared, I presume, as a pop-up ad when I visited some site this morning – my work computer doesn’t have much blockery going on.
I won’t link to the site, because that’s bad form (and makes google think it’s legitimate). Here’s a cut-and-paste of the text that caught my eye…

My name is Erin Jones from Wellington, New Zealand, and I started this blog because I want everyone to know how I went from being broke to completely paying off my debt in 30 days by spending a few minutes filling out a form online that qualified me for a $12,000 Financial Aid Check from the New Zealand Government.

So far, so standard – websites long ago figured out that they could detect your location and customise their content to suit. (This can lead to unintended amusement – “Dating Action – hot girls like Shawanna waiting for u in Wainuiomata New Zealand“) But the cultural cringe kicked in. They weren’t just popping up a location – they were talking about my government, dude! I wanted to see just how much they loved my country, so I scrolled down further – and saw this “picture of the actual grant check I received in the mail”:

Wow! That says New Zealand and even has a little NZ flag on the image! IT MUST BE TRUE! THEY LOVE US!
I checked out the picture’s properties and noted that the url ended “/gr-nz.jpg”
Hmm, I thought, I wonder what I’d find if I put in “/gr-us.jpg”? Or…
Well, see for yourself:
http://www.erinsgrantblog.com/erinsgrantblog/files1/gr-us.jpg
http://www.erinsgrantblog.com/erinsgrantblog/files1/gr-ca.jpg
http://www.erinsgrantblog.com/erinsgrantblog/files1/gr-au.jpg
http://www.erinsgrantblog.com/erinsgrantblog/files1/gr-uk.jpg
So I’m proud to announce that Erin’s Grant Blog thinks that NZ’s con marks are worth just as much as those in the US, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. I’ve tried a few other letter combinations but I can’t find any other countries that enjoy the same status. So that means that today we Kiwis can stand proud, because we are being treated just like the others! We’re in the big boys gang! Our internets are being targetted just as theirs are! That fake bank check didn’t create itself you know – somewhere out there is a scammer who cares about New Zealand.
It warms my heart.