Oliver Walter wrote:
This is a symptom of what I think must be the case: once you are in one (or more) of the lists of email addresses used by spammers, you`re likely to remain on those lists, even if you never reply to the spam/phishing emails. Since I\'m sure I have no viruses or \'trojan horses\' on my computer, I think I must be on some of these lists as a result of some malware of this type on the computer of somebody else who has my email address in their address book.
I\'m sure I recognise all these spam and phishing emails without difficulty. Your first reaction to any email you receive must be to ask \\\"Is it genuine?\\\" - even if it appears to come from somebody you know.
The following is an obvious attempted fraud, roughly similar to Tom\'s. I received it in Feb this year (The Subject was \\\"Good day,\\\"):
---------- start of quoted email -----------
Good day,
Hope all is well with you and your family.
I am Mr Tete Ahmed. Accountant by profession, I\'m 48yrs old, working at the office of Auditing and accounting Department of Bank of Africa (BOA).I\'m married with two children. My residence address no: 18 avenue de la Charles Degaulle sect: 21. Box Postal: 01 bp 5256 Ouagadougou Burkina Faso . I want you to handle this business transaction with me if chance to do international business.
I got your contact from a reliable web directory.
We are imposition to reclaim and inherit the sum of US$10, million without any trouble, from a dormant account which remains unclaimed since 11 years the owner died. This is a U.S Dollar’s account and the beneficiary died without trace of his family to claim the fund and no next of kin.
If interested to do this business with me without betray I will give you more details of the transfer.
Thanks
Mr Tete Ahmed
--------- end of quoted email -----------
The \\\"reply\\\" address was a gmail address, but by analysing the email header, I think it came from a Yahoo server in Taiwan - in any case I doubt whether there\'s any real Burkina Faso connection.
The previous one I received (last December) was (it claimed) from a Mrs Margaret Lewis, with the subject \\\"Dear beloved\\\", who, of course, has no children and whose husband died in Thailand, leaving 7.5 million dollars. She wanted to find somebody \\\"who will use this money to fund churches, orphanages and widows propagating the word of God and to ensure that the house of God is maintained.\\\". This email\'s \\\"from\\\" address was a \\\".com\\\" address actually in Singapore, but the \\\"reply to\\\" address was a \\\".th\\\" address in Thailand.
Yes, I keep a few of these emails as \\\"museum exhibits\\\" for occasions such as today.
[Edited at 2015-08-08 11:10 GMT]
...before I registered on Proz. They were invariably in bad English, by people with made up names, about huge inheritances in unclaimed dormant accounts. I suppose those people are after confirmed personal data. What for I don´t know and I prefer to remain in the dark about it
)