I'm looking at a moldy e-mail scam

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It's from Nigerians who supposedly need third party help getting money out of the country. Question: should I be reporting this scam, and if so, to whom?

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2002

Answers

So much of what I receive is spam, that I don't open any e-mails if I don't recognize who it is from (so I have no idea whether I have ever received this one).

In all the recountings I have heard about it, never noticed any suggestion of who it might be reported to. If the e-mail is generated from outside the country, there might not be any jurisdiction. There are the state consumer protection divisions but I don't think this qualifies as purchasing anything. I dunno.

Much relieved that my Alzheimer's mother has no independent access to a phone...

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2002


brooks, I hear that, when we were going through dad's stuff, he had every "scam" there was..he was not into astrology at all, did not believe in any of the stuff like that, but they's send junk mail, and he thought it was a bill and would send $$$$..also, if any scams called on thre phone,,,,he's say ok, they sent stuff in the mail, and he'd send $$$$ to think he never would have before!

it is so sad how older people are so scammed, especially in the early stages of "forgetfulness, or confusion"..and they are trying to hide it.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2002


Send it to abuse@whateverISPtheyuse.com

You can also send it to your IP, but they won't do much, usually. maybe send an alert to the other members of your IP.

You have to also send, what is it called, properties? page source? Return path? All that kind of stuff that normally you wouldn't look at in an email.

If you want you can also send all that stuff to the FBI.

Maybe send it to one of those hoax reporting sites?

I recently found the js.seeker worm on my system, and after cleaning it out I have started deleting any messages where I don't know the sender, even though the virus program scans them and cleans them first. I used to scan all messages that I sent, but that takes too long so I stopped that.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2002


I think I received a worm virus at work today, and I may have activated it cuz I opened the attachments. But I can't get through to our HelpDesk to let them check it out. (Must be a NeverMindDesk today...) We did get a message from management a week or so ago that they can't block against the Klez (?) virus without disabling too much of our incoming e-mail.

As I was waiting in vain for the HelpDesk to answer, I tried calling the organization (my sportsmans club, darn it) that sent me the e- mails. The apparent sender wasn't around, and the guy who answered (sounded a bit like the club prez) was clueless. You'd think he would have followed up on it because they have a HUGE mailing list. Also surprised I was the first to call them.

Here's hoping that I closed and deleted those e-mails in time. For that matter, here's hoping it wasn't actually a virus.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2002


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