Hi all,

Just received an eml using the old "I have a lot of money that I have to take out of my country" routine.

What made it interesting is that it purports to come from one "Mrs. Faith k. Van Heusen", gives the name of a lawyer to contact, and doesn't ask for my bank account number - yet.

ira, those types of e-mails I delete without reading. I call it spam.

I would assume people who come on this board would not fall for such a scam.

ira, I got the same one. I'll let you later if I get my 30% of the 10,000,000
deposited in my account. Sending them your ATM card and pin number makes it easy for them to deposit the money so I should know soon.

I have received a half dozen e-mails from Sun Trust (supposedly) that states there has been a mix-up in my account. I won't be able to access my checking account until I send them my account number so they can clear it up.

Of course, I don't have an account with Sun Trust.

Slow day at the salt mill, Ira?

Surely this is not the first of these emails that you have received?

Do Americans, like Canadians, also receive those constant and rather pathetic e-mails from Commonwealth countries (Nigeria of course but also Zambia etc) offering a share in money tied up because of civil strife, change of government etc.?

I get several a week -- on my government office e-mail.

Some days they almost crowd out the Viagra spam!

Another take on this is one from Nigeria looking for people with same last name as my husband (a relatively common name in US) because a distant relative might have money for us. All they need is our bank account information.

This is probably as good a place as any to post this:

<b>Treat your e-mail address like an unlisted phone number.</b>

<i>I.e.</i>, don't post it publicly, and don't give it to anyone you don't want calling/mailing you.

Legitimate web sites that ask for your address will clearly state their privacy policy; never give yours to a site that you aren't pretty damn sure won't sell it.

I have several accounts that receive <u>no spam whatsoever</u> because they are known only to trusted friends and business associates.

I also have a &quot;spam sink&quot; account that I use for the rare occasions where I have to give an e-mail address (such as to confirm an order or the like) but I don't fully trust the requestor. Once I have received the confirmation or whatever, I routinely delete the entire box without looking at what's in it.

Hi ira,

I have received several of these lately. Also watch out for these:

If you have an account with Citibank (such as a citi mastercard, etc.), there is an email circulating that looks EXACTLY like it comes from Citibank. It has the logos, the copyright, the legal jargon, etc. It claims that due to identity theft, each citicard member needs to go to the website link posted and re-enter their information. The link it directs you too also looks almost identical to the citicard homepage. I could not believe how legitimate this hoax looked. The only thing that sent up red flags to me was that I received the email at my work email address and I knew for certain that my personal email address is the only one citibank has. I called Citi and they confirmed it was a hoax and that a lot of customers were falling for it.

The other realistic one going around right now comes from eBay/Paypal. It also uses all of the logos, legal jargon, and copyright symbols.

Anyone else have one to share as a warning to others?

This garbage is called phishing and you can see some of this if you do a web search on phishing.

AOL sent me one, or at least one of the pieces of garbage sent one, claiming they were unable to verify my credit card account and I would be charged $35 if I did not re submit the credit card number alone with the PIN and the security code and my mother's maiden name etc.

Luckily I didn't fall for it but I am sure others have.

These pieces of garbage live in either Nigeria or in Eastern Europe.

www.quatloos.com

Here, you will find several exhibits of online scams.