If you've had an email purporting to be from me saying I'm overseas at a conference and I've had my bag stolen thus needing help, please be reassured this is a scam. There's no emergency going on in my life - I'm at home, in fine fettle and as solvent as I'm ever likely to be. Just delete the email without opening it and do NOT reply to it or you'll probably have your account hacked as well. On the other hand, if you'd like to confirm receipt of this communication on the back of a £20 note sent to my POSTAL address only, I'll put it into the Tilley or Guinness fund immediately and take great pleasure in disbursing it at the earliest possible opportunity! But seriously, many thanks to those who've taken the time and trouble to contact me about this - I'm most grateful...
I was going to post you a bag David, i had a spare one after shopping this morning, didn't cost me 5p....
You're all heart, Paul! Seriously though, I've just spoken with someone who responded to the email. Apparently I'm at a conference in Manila and I need £1250 to get home. Suffice it to say, DO NOT, ON ANY ACCOUNT, send this money because I won't get it (and I'll not be paying you back!). The money will actually go to email address 'benzzaniline@aol.com' which is sufficiently similar to mine to fool a casual observer. The money will be transferred by Western Union, which should be enough to set off alarm bells ringing anyway. It used to be £250 they asked to be sent, so that's inflation for you! - unless they knew I had expensive tastes...
This happened to me a few years back, apparently i had picked up a virus, it was diverting my e mails to them, i had a friend who was a computer wiz, he found it and then changed my password...
Yeah I remember when I got that email from you in Manila Paul. I'm still waiting for you to pay me back!!!
If they can log in to your email they can see any ebay notification emails you have received. Then having your ebay user name they log in to your ebay account and use the forgot password feature. ebay send a new password to your email and they have your ebay account as well. Then they set up a rule on your email account so that any emails containing the word "ebay" are sent to the deleted items folder. Which to be fair most of us do not tend to look at that often. This happened to me a couple of years ago and before I knew it I was apparently selling a horse box on ebay. The IP address was traced to the Delaware Schools District somewhere in America.
