Nisadas

Not so long ago I wrote about the scam involving the use of the AirTel name and the promise of an iPhone to harvest email addresses. It seems that any new entrant to the Sri Lankan market can be almost guaranteed that its name will be used for a scam.

Just consider what I found in my inbox today:

If this is indeed the genuine article, whoever is behind it at AirAsia should be given a good dressing down for shoddy publicity tactics. I harbour serious doubts that this can be anywhere close to legitimate.

Why?

• The fact that there are no contact details apart from a gmail address and the AirAsia website.
• The bad spelling – e. g. “SriLankan’s” (although a misplaced apostrophe is quite common in countries where english isn’t the first language).
• The bad grammar
• The use of an older background image which was used in AirAsia’s initial promotions for the low cost fares to Australia.
• The sneaky use of the “Sale” tags on the current AirAsia promotion (the ones in red, blue, green and yellow hanging off the top) renamed “Free”.
• And finally, the use of the term “their” when referring to the company – doesn’t sound legit at all

If I were working at AirAsia I’d try to find out who’s behind all this – although I don’t know whether harvesting email addresses is an issue addressed by the laws of our lovely isle.

Alternatively, anyone who just watches and waits for the spam ads to turn up in their mailbox would know exactly who is behind this.

So in conclusion, if you happen to have gotten this email – please do the world  a favour; delete the message and break the chain!

UPDATE: It seems that Amitha Amarasinghe also came across this recently. Of course, he managed to get through to Air Asia and confirm that it’s a scam. Well done Amitha!