Beware of spam!
I have just received a particularly insidious scam that is going around now. It is described further in the attached link:
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/phishing_Tagged_dot_com.php
What this thing does is send messages to everyone that you have ever emailed, inviting them to look at photos from you. I received one from a friend, and the inclination is to say, "How nice that they sent me this!" Below the invitation is a message saying "Please respond or Nancy may think you said no :(", using your friends name. The idea is to make you feel guilty if you don't respond! That is a big tipoff.
I have only gotten a couple of these, but my wife has gotten more recently, and a friend last night at dinner told me about receiving one (that he did not respond to!)
Be very careful about responding to anything that you did not expect to receive, even from people that you know. If the message makes you feel guilty, be extra careful!
My reaction to this message was just what the scammer wanted me to think, "Oh, this is from a friend, it must be okay." Fortunately (maybe because another friend had just mentioned this to me a few hours before), I paused and thought about it further. I had never heard of this site that I got the message from, so I opened another window and googled it, where I found the link above. Everything was pretty clear after that.
I sent a message to my friend (her real email) telling her what I thought had happened to her and got an immediate response saying, "Yes, that is exactly what happened, and she now was working frantically to try to undo the damage". Unfortunately, it is pretty hard to undo! Anyone who received it and opened it has already spread it further! In addition to that, it is pretty hard to send an email to everyone in your own address book. I am trying now, and there are so many bad addresses accumulated in the book that I am having a lot of trouble sending a legitimate message to all the good addresses!!
Always be suspicious and use caution before responding to mail that you weren't expecting. These things are playing on natural responses and on a moment's inattention on your part. Believe me, if you get tricked into responding, you will feel terrible as sooon as you realize it, but it is too late at that point!
http://www.
What this thing does is send messages to everyone that you have ever emailed, inviting them to look at photos from you. I received one from a friend, and the inclination is to say, "How nice that they sent me this!" Below the invitation is a message saying "Please respond or Nancy may think you said no :(", using your friends name. The idea is to make you feel guilty if you don't respond! That is a big tipoff.
I have only gotten a couple of these, but my wife has gotten more recently, and a friend last night at dinner told me about receiving one (that he did not respond to!)
Be very careful about responding to anything that you did not expect to receive, even from people that you know. If the message makes you feel guilty, be extra careful!
My reaction to this message was just what the scammer wanted me to think, "Oh, this is from a friend, it must be okay." Fortunately (maybe because another friend had just mentioned this to me a few hours before), I paused and thought about it further. I had never heard of this site that I got the message from, so I opened another window and googled it, where I found the link above. Everything was pretty clear after that.
I sent a message to my friend (her real email) telling her what I thought had happened to her and got an immediate response saying, "Yes, that is exactly what happened, and she now was working frantically to try to undo the damage". Unfortunately, it is pretty hard to undo! Anyone who received it and opened it has already spread it further! In addition to that, it is pretty hard to send an email to everyone in your own address book. I am trying now, and there are so many bad addresses accumulated in the book that I am having a lot of trouble sending a legitimate message to all the good addresses!!
Always be suspicious and use caution before responding to mail that you weren't expecting. These things are playing on natural responses and on a moment's inattention on your part. Believe me, if you get tricked into responding, you will feel terrible as sooon as you realize it, but it is too late at that point!
Labels: community building, Internet tips, social media
posted by RGMyers at 10:48 AM
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