Earlier this morning I received this email from my daughter. I kept reading it and it sounded like a scam. The way the wording is put together and the general syntax feels wrong. No personalization or anything to indicate that she was the one who sent it. It just didn't sound like her. I checked the heading on the email and it was sent to "Undisclosed Recipients," so it was bcc'd to others.

I called my daughter on her cell (still has it, wasn't stolen) and told her about the email. She said her friend had called her about it too.

Anyway, if you get an email from a family member or friend like this, beware. My daughter got a call from a friend who also got the same email.

Quote email:

Subject: Help Needed!!!!!!!!<Daughter's Full Name>

I am sorry i didn't inform you about my trip,i am presently in Scotland,went for a therapy seminal .I am caught up in a real mess right now and i need your help,a terrible thing happened to me,i was mugged at a gun point,the muggers made away with all my belongings.My cell phone,credit card,cash and some important documents are all gone.I was able to make contact with the UK Police and i was directed to the Embassy.They have helped me with a return ticket back to Texas USA.My flight leaves soon but i am having problems sorting out my hotel bills. I need a quick loan of $2,800 to settle hotel bill,i promise to pay back once i get home.

Thanks,

<daughter's name>

Unquote.

My daughter owns a Physical Therapy clinic in Tigard, OR., and that's probably the email address that was hacked as the email mentions a "therapy (sic) seminal."

I thought I've seen them all! I've been getting more scam emails lately, most coming from Nigeria. but some coming from just about everywhere. It's insane. Good catch on your part and thanks for the heads up.

I just got another one saying "Mom please i need you to act fast......"

I called her and left a message telling her she'd need to dump that gmail account because the email address is her email address.

Here is what it's replying to and that's not from me.

"On 3/24/11, <daughtetr's name and email addy> wrote:
> > Tonya (notice, it is addressed to my first name, not mom) am so glad to read from you,its for real.I went there on a
> > therapy seminal but i was robbed on getting to the hotel where i
> > lodged.
> >
> > Please i need your urgent help.
> >
> > Thank, <daughter's name"

The "return ticket to Texas USA" should have been a dead giveaway. First, why Texas? And secondly, anyone from the U.S. wouldn't write "Texas USA." Is there a Texas, Scotland?

I like the ones from the guy who left you all sorts of money because well he never knew you but picked you from a list of 100 people.
That is insane to use your relatives to try and scam you.Some people will fall for this if they think their relatives are really stranded someplace.
My Mom and i both received one similar from Scotland.Said it was my sister Cindy on vacation and got robbed at gun point and couldn't pay her bills so she couldn't leave.Right away i thought there is no way the American Embassy over there will allow that.Besides if my sister goes on vacation with her two teen daughters you better bet one will still have a phone stuffed in her sock or something
Anyways i called my Mom asked if Cindy was okay and she said she had gotten the same mail and talked to Cindy and she was here in the USA and fine.Stupid crooks.

Here is the reply back i got when i answered it to try and get more info-

Glad you are willing to help,We have nothing left on us right now and we're lucky to have our life and passports with us it would have been worse if they had made away with our passports.Well all we need now is just $2,800, you can have it wired to my name via Western Union i'll have to show my passport as ID to pick it up here and i promise to pay you back as soon as we get back home. Here's my info below

cynthia (last name hidden)
Location-453 St Andrew Square.
Edinburgh Scotland EH2 2YB

As soon as it has been done, kindly get back to me with the confirmation number. Let me know if you are heading to the WU outlet now???.

they have to be kidding

Then -
May i know what is going on let me know once you have it wire to the info i gave you??? and get back to me with the Full Transfer Details

lol

then-
May i know what is going on let me know once you have it wire to the info i gave you??? and get back to me with the Full Transfer Details

Here is a good one an email to myself from me -yes i said me
We are looking for someone to work with us researching and contacting website owners to negotiate advertising deals.

You should have a a great of experience with browsing the web,
be a good user of Microsoft Office Packages, especially, Microsoft Excel (To fill in the details).


We are looking for a self-oriented and high organizational person, because you will be expected to work on your own initiative and work hard.
We will provide you with the high salary (we are paying $14.00-$16.50/hour), and free training.

Your schedule will be the following:
- 3-5 working days a week,
- independent work hours,
- compensation package and, by the way, nice opportunity to develop yourself within our company!


This opportunity can move you to another level of work with full-time employment,
studies and kids, also provision a generous primary or secondary income.

To get more details send us a letter to [email protected]

When I get my 9.2 million dollars from that nice man in Nigeria I'll buy her a new phone, just as soon as he gets my bank account number and makes the transfer. If my deal for the chicken farm in Liberia goes through first I'll buy her a new purse too.

This really makes me wonder how secure Google mail is. There are other reports of the same thing happening to others.

Change your gmail passwords regularly.

Or do what I do, use a python program to generate a 100 Charector, Symbol, Number, Capatalized and everything Password, then delete random things to slim to 32, and then write it down, and Use for Password, bit of a pain to log in, but well Good Luck Hacking me.

Passwords don't much matter when the e-mail addresses are being spoofed. That's why it helps to send the full e-mail header when reporting spam. The header contains the actual ISP and IP origin of the e-mail as opposed to the faked sent from address.

Blame M$ not Google.
I have a Gmail account which I had to open to communicate with a friend in Indonesia.
His provider was totally blacklisted by my provider.
I once got spam on that account when he had visited Thailand.
Criminals can easily break into Windows systems and plunder the email addressbook!
Gerard.

Since I don't have any children, I would just have deleted this one O. lol

Sad folk have figured out how to exploit every email or communication device to send email for malignent reasons. If you have one of those rfid credit cards, you better put them in some sort of Faraday cage too or someone will use a discriminent scanner and still your card info. Such a wacky world we live in now.

These very crooks are using Facebook in the same way they are spoofing email addresses. A majority of emails are "spoofed" not hacked. The difference being is that in a spoof email app you can use any email address you want as the sender's email, which then actually looks like it was sent from that email address. Even still, I would regularly change my passwords on ALL my accounts, regardless.

I couldn't say for sure on Gmail but I ran an experiment on hotmail ans yahoo once. I opened an account, didn't use it for a week and didn't give it to anybody. After a week I checked them and both were full of spams. That to me means that yahoo and hotmail sold my email. Before I got serious about gmail I ran the same test there and when i checked my box after a week it was empty.

It's not a matter of yahoo or hotmail selling your email. There are several simple programs that will incrementally calculate email names. For example, they can start with joe1(at)xmail.com, and end with joe9999(at)xmail.com. It will send to joe1, joe2, joe3, joe4, etc. until it hits joe9999. The spammers and scammers don't need to "buy" your email, when their software will do it all. Worse yet, at the bottom of each post is an option to remove your name from their mailing list. If you click it, they know that your email is active and they add it to a list that they sell. It's terrible what they can do!

I have active gmail, hotmail and yahoo mail accounts. I've had my hotmail account for probably close to 10 years. I used it for signing into the Internet Gaming Zone. I used to get spam in the hotmail account but I hardly ever do now. They've cleaned it up and it's a nice email account. If I happen to get a spam, I report it and never see it again.

I seldom get spam of any kind in any of my email accounts.

How exactly do you not get Spam in Yahoo... that is talent

O, that is a nasty scam alright. Very believable! Like everyone else I get spams and scams sent to me. Last week I was told that my account was suspended as there had been unauthorised attempts to access my account. I knew it was a scam as I do not have an account with that bank. So I replied "Thank God for that, it was probably my ex-wife trying to get to my money. Please issue me with another account no and transfer the balance to my new account and get back to me" I just could not resist that one.
After that they were on my blocked sender list and blocked domain list. I know that means that they had a positive response to my email address , but as it was addressed to my correct email address already.

After 13 years with the same email address I would like to change it to get off every list, but all that means is that they (the spammers) have won. So I stay with my email address and filter all mail. With any mail that does look genuine, I look at the detail option of the sender and it usually is very clear that the email is a scam!