December 23, 2007

Phish for Christmas?


Whew! I’m a lucky guy.

Without my crack professional friends at “Central Bank,” and the obviously highly-effective spam filtering system at my Internet Service Provider (Prairie Wave) I could be in deep trouble on Christmas Day. My non-existent account could have been suspended! But by following e-mail directions I received this morning from "Central Bank," I can save it.

Here’s their message:

Dear Central Bank customer,

During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedures, we have detected a slight error in your billing information.

This might be due to either of the following reasons:
1. A recent change in your personal information ( i.e.change of address).
2. Submiting invalid information during the initial sign up process.
3. An inability to accurately verify your selected option of payment due to an internal error within our processors.

Please update and verify your information by folowing this link:

http:/66.48.225.11/~dumb/www.centralbank.com/person/homee/index.php


If your account information is not updated within 48 hours we will be forced to suspend your account indefinitely.

The Central Bank Billing Department .

NOTE: If you received this message in your SPAM/BULK folder, that is because of the restrictions implemented by your ISP.

Thank you for your patience in this matter. We apologize for any inconveniences.
© 1998-2007 Central Bancshares. Disclaimers. Privacy Policy. The USA Patriot Act.

Fortunately, their fears that my ISP (Prairie Wave) might place their urgent message in my SPAM/BULK folder “because of the restrictions implemented by your ISP” were unjustified. Even Central Bank can’t compete with the sophisticated spam filtering system and highly developed technical knowledge of Prairie Wave (after all, they’re now a division of Knology). Prairie Wave’s efficient system looked at it, said….”Gosh, Larry’s just got to have this one” and placed the missive directly into my IN box.

Thank you Prairie Wave. I suspect the folks at Knology might even send a tutor to Central Bank and assist them with their spelling. I mean, some folks might think such a schlocky looking e-mail with misspelled words was Spam. Thank heavens for Prairie Wave.
-
P.S. I altered the URL in their message. I don't want just anyone to benefit from "folowing" the link!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, Prairiewave's anti-spam and anti-phishing protection was very good until Knology took over. As of October 2007 all email for Prairiewave customers is going through Knology's servers in Georgia, not through South Dakota. So I'd point the finger at the numbskulls in Georgia, not the few good people not laid off in South Dakota.

Larry Miller said...

Dear Anonymous...

Thanks for your comment. I would agree that my criticism would have been better directed at Knology than at Prairie Wave. I, too, noticed a big change in service, and I didn't know that all e-mail now goes through Knology's servers. My troubles continue, too. Alas, I fear I'm becoming more accepting of this inferior service. How sad.