A general email caution
 

I'm sure all Fodorites are careful about email addresses, but at any rate, be extra careful and doublecheck. A cautionary tale:<BR><BR>We have an email address that happens to attract a lot of misdirected email from people who don't doublecheck before they send. 15 minutes ago, we got an email from someone in the U.S. who thought he was emailing a bank administrator. He attached a pdf of his most recent pay stub. It contained:<BR>His full name and home address<BR>Place of work (his title, company name, address, phone number)<BR>Social security number<BR>Bank account number and bank name (!!)<BR>Detailed salary information<BR><BR>If we were identity thieves, what a payday!<BR>Ironically, this guy was an IT professional.<BR>Anyway, doublecheck those addresses! (We emailed the guy about his mistake.)<BR>

Dear BTilke,<BR><BR>Thank you for your honest treatment of the person who e-mailed you.<BR><BR>Your gesture to him was the only uplifting note in this day surrounded by the weight of potential war with all its destruction.<BR><BR>Thanks for the uplift.

That was great thing to do BTiLKe!!!Is nice to know that are still honest caring people in this troubled world...:)

We get all kinds of interesting stuff--letters from college kids to their parents, invitations to parties (complete with directions), job reference letters, etc. Last year, someone kept emailing us his company's detailed business plans, including specific strategies against the competition. We repeatedly emailed them polite requests to get us off their address list. They finally stopped when we threatened to forward all the emails directly to their competitor's head of marketing. <BR>Nothing tops the experience we had with our home fax machine in the early 1990s. Some Air Force officer in Colorado Springs faxed us 15 pages of highly classified material intended for another officer whose fax number was similar to ours (How could he even have been *allowed* to fax that kind of info??). We called the guy up and told him about it--I think he nearly had a heart attack!

I too think it is most honorable not only to do it,but to tell the board so.I read your posts and think sometimes you oughta hav your own travel website,no joke.Ok--at least write a book!!

Wow, that is amazing! and scary when you think of classified material being sent via email!<BR>What a nice person you are!! and Good thing you are honest:)

You are indeed a kind and honest soul.<BR><BR>I'm not sure how much it actually protects you, but I have many friends who works at law firms. All their faxes and e-mails have variations of the following at the bottom:<BR><BR>&quot;The information in this transmittal (including attachments, if any) is privileged and confidential and is intended only for the recipient(s) listed above. Any review, use, disclosure, distribution or copying of this transmittal is prohibited except by or on behalf of the intended recipient. If you have received this transmittal in error, please notify me immediately by reply email (or fax) and destroy all copies of the transmittal. Thank you.&quot;<BR><BR>Anyone sending anything confidential should probably consider adding something of this nature to his/her messages.

Thank you for telling us about this and for your honesty.<BR><BR>It is best not to send any important information via e-mail or fax. Those disclaimers might make the sender feel better, but they have no &quot;teeth&quot;, IMO.

Very nice, BTilke. This reminds me of studies which have been done periodically in the U.S. to test the &quot;honesty level&quot; of people in various U.S. cities. Usually, the researchers do something like leave a wallet with money somewhere and then see how often people return it intact. If someone were to do this in various European cities, I wonder what the results would be?

I found this, about the &quot;wallet test&quot;:<BR><BR>&quot;How Honest Are We?&quot; <BR><BR>http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/1997/03/think_01.html<BR><BR>&quot;Out of 120 wallets dropped in Canada, 77 were returned intact -- 64 percent. In a similar Digest survey of 12 U.S. towns and cities, the figure was 67 percent. In Europe it was 58 percent; in Asia, 57 percent.&quot;<BR><BR>and...<BR><BR>&quot;Intrigui ngly, women far outperformed men in our exercise. Of the 58 women who picked up the wallets, 42 returned them with the money still inside -- 73 percent. Of the 62 men who picked up the wallets, only 35 returned them intact -- 56 percent.&quot;<BR><BR>

It's been a weird day. I just spoke with our U.S. bank--&quot;someone&quot; tried to put through 7 (!!!) fraudulent charges from the Intercontinental Hotel in Vienna, where I stayed last week. The sharpies in the bank's fraud department declined all the charges, thankfully, but one of my credit cards had to be canceled. I'll be speaking with the Interconti's manager tomorrow. I expect them to take this VERY, VERY seriously and launch a full investigation!! (The card was NEVER out of my possession and I used it only ONCE--when I checked in!)

This is getting scary!

<BR>You sure have a lot of problems. All the years I've used my card never had problem one either here or abroad. <BR>Also never recv. other people's email. Just lucky I guess!!

I have never received misdirected email, but I have on a couple of occasions had fraudulent use of my credit card. Luckily, the card companies were prompt and vigilant in addressing the problem.<BR>

Back in college, I once received a misdirected e-mail from someone at the FBI--scared me to death at first. The e-mail was a short memo, pretty trivial stuff, but I forwarded it back to him anyway. He simply replied back and thanked me.<BR><BR>As posted earlier, you never know, maybe they're testing your honesty.

Since I work in an office where doors have to be locked and pcs locked down for coffee breaks, I constantly have issues of sloppiness.<BR><BR>The latest one was sending a contractor over to the copier to copy a doc he needed.<BR><BR>He returned with his copy and another original which was left on the glass.<BR><BR>It was watermarked 'confidential'.<BR><BR>The fax is in the same room out of sight.<BR>

Since you opened the enclosure, I would recommend that you check your computer with the latest up-to-date anti-virus and anti-worm softwares, since some people use this way to dispatch worms or viruses...

We have all the latest anti-virus software, thanks anyway. It's possible for a pdf to carry a virus (with macros running), but read-only documents are much less likely to carry viruses or worms.

I was once billed by Amex for a stay in a 5 star hotel in Ireland.As soon as I queried it it they cancelled the bill, must happen a lot.

We're sorting out a fraudulent use of our CC right now!<BR><BR>On our last bill we noticed a payment in Lille.<BR><BR>We phoned the CC company for more details before refuting the charge(thinking perhaps something we'd purchased over the internet or from a travel company was being processed by a head company based in Lille or something).<BR><BR>When they said it was a swiped transaction in Lille itself we refuted it.<BR><BR>We haven't been to Lille for years and didn't even have that CC then.<BR><BR>Do check you CC statements properly.<BR><BR>BTilke, thanks for the warning.

capo informs us about &quot;wallet test&quot;:<BR><BR>&quot;Out of 120 wallets dropped in Canada, 77 were returned intact -- 64 percent. In a similar Digest survey of 12 U.S. towns and cities, the figure was 67 percent. In Europe it was 58 percent; in Asia, 57 percent.&quot;<BR><BR> Ah, how times have changed. Many years ago I dropped a wallet on the Strojet in Copenhagen. It took about two hours to realize the loss and retrace my footsteps.<BR> There was a policeman standing at the spot at which I dropped it waiting for me. A pedestrian had found it and waited there until he could give it to a policeman.<BR>

Hi all,<BR> Something that might be off topic, but could be useful.<BR><BR> I have received emls in the last two days from what appeared to be eBay and PayPal asking me for credit card info.<BR><BR> They were both fraudulent. Don't send anyone financial info without first checking with the 'sender'.

I discovered not long ago that many people were having problems with PayPals and Ebay uses/owns PayPals. If you use Ebay, they will ask you for your bank account number! <BR>I ,for one, did not use Ebay because of this.

Speaking of wallets, my husband accidently left his wallet on the train in Japan. This wallet was returned to him the next day with everything intact.<BR><BR>I don't think you will ever find pick pockets in Japan.

We had someone leave a message on our phone machine full of highly confidential information about someone who was about to get fired, how much to offer someone else, how to do the accounting so it would look legit., etc. etc. Since the number was blocked on caller ID, I had no way of warning the caller that the call had gone to the wrong number -- and I really wonder what happened when they discovered the message never reached the intended person.<BR><BR>

What I forgot to mention, also, was that the person read out the soc. sec. number of the new hire on the message. Duh!

A travelling companion of mine left his wallet (including passport) on a long distance bus in Turkey when we alighted in a small town. We didn't even know where the bus was going to next. The wallet was delivered to our hotel the next morning with everything intact.