Swedish Mobile Users Fear Losing Money

'Don't click the link!'

Get It Try It

DUCKPOND (Rixstep) — A new MOBILE COMPUTING VIRUS is sweeping the nation, according to the venerable Expressen. A Swedish girl named 'Lina' who was contacted by Expressen's star reporters warns her fellow ducks about clicking on the link when the SMS comes through on the mobile device.

'People know about these messages', says Lina. 'They seem to switch countries every day. Don't click on the links!'

Lina says she hasn't clicked on any of the links, so one naturally wonders how she can understand the consequences, unless it's through friends who've not been judicious.

But the cracked reporters at Expressen were smart enough to capture a screenshot from Lina's phone which they reproduced online. Here it is in FULL SIZE.



And as Expressen said, it's a very dastardly trick. There's no way Lina or anyone else could know this wasn't a genuine request from the bank!

Except for one or two small things.

• The sender poses as 'SwedBank' but there's no avatar.

• The sender isn't SwedBank but 'hostmailer' at e-i.net.

• e-i.net is a parked domain for 'euro information' set up by a bank in France.
  
  

• The actual message is crappy Swedish: grammatical errors, words missing, etc. Translating the message doesn't convey all the embarrassing flaws, but Swedes - and especially Lina and Expressen - should have alarms sounding ferociously in their viking skulls.
  
  02-01-2014 14:00
  
  We noticed an invalid login attempt to your account online from an unknown IP-address.
  For this reason we have temporarily your account. [sic]
  We need you to update your account information for your Internet bank shall be reactivated.
  please [sic] update your invoice details today via xxxxx.

And of course the banks themselves keep telling the ducks that they never send out things like this. And of course a duck can always ring the bank to inquire.

But then Expressen wouldn't have a story and their reporters would be out of a job.