Genealogy Chat

I know most of us have learnt by now not to open attachments or click on messages that look shifty but today my antivirus stopped a message with attachment which had a 'serious worm' in it -not sure if that is a blue stocking one Brenda. So just a timely reminder that any suspicious looking mails could be a threat. This one was titled something like 'Your account is running out'

Yes, if it had said a genealogy site, I would have opened it too. I think the sneakiest one I had was supposedly from e-bay with a question from the buyer of your item! Well, since Id never ever sold an item on e-bay I sent a reply saying, sorry not me. Then curiosity overcame me as there was a link to look at the supposed item I was supposed to have sold. I clicked on link and found another message supposedly from e-bay (and it had all the correct headings and type) saying this page is unavailable, click on another link - so I clicked on that and blow me, didnt it then ask for my name and password so I could access said sold item. AND I nearly did it!! It was only cos I was short of time that I didnt and then a little while later it hit me just how close I could have been to ending up paying out for lots of items that Id never bought.

I had one at work last week, didn't contain virus but just spam. It was a receipt supposidly from Paypal for a sex toy I had bought!!! I won't tell you exactly what, but it was £1900! Boy I think I could have had some fun with that. Anyway - contacted Paypal through their website and they confirmed it was not from them. Bit worried for a while though that I was going to find a transaction on my credit card!!

I wasnt sure if Derek was going mad or me then! Well I got one last week telling me my Gay Talk Sub was up and running and I could soon be sharing dirty talk and video cams with other gay men!! Told you Im looking rough these days. The point is, lots of these are totally stupid messages but the normal reaction is to try to find out what its about and how you got it. Like your sex toy one, it probably had a link on it and you would have ended up with them trying to con your password out of you or something.

Never follow a link on a suspicious e-mail. If you want more info or check the validity of it, try to trace the website, like I did for paypal. There are a lot going around supposedly from banks, again do not open it if not sure, ask your bank and never follow the link.

I had a really horrible one once - it contained a link to a Child Pornography site! I didn't click on the link, just deleted the message and reported it. There are some sick people out there! K

Who do you report things like that to? I have to say that hotmail seem to have got their act together and I dont get any of those horrible porn ones at all now but I used to get some disgusting ones and once I just blew my top and replied giving them a right ol rollicking and telling them to burn in hell. Yep, got twice as many after that.

I had an email from Lloyds(not Lloyds of course) asking for my account details and It took ages to try to find Lloyd's email address to forward the email to. I ended up telephoning them and they asked me to forwards it to emailscam.lloyds.com which I did. At least it makes the company aware of what scams are going on. Perhaps they can trace the sender. Irene

Dear All, I had a beauty of a scam e mail this weekend, it said that an attempt to access my ebay account had been made from abroad and was now suspended while an investigation was being made. To all sense and purposes the message was from ebay....except first I have never used the account, it has only been set up by my daughter and one spelling mistake. I forwarded the mail to ebay and they confirmed it was a spoof. Be AWARE!!!

Yes I've had a couple of really convincing scam emails from bogus ebay and paypal. Just to reinforce 'Don't click on the link' I found the correct web address and forwarded the bogus emails - at least they then know what has been sent out to people and hopefully will catch them.

I have had several e-mails from various banks I do not have accounts for - asking me to confirm details of my account - told the bank about the first but just deleted the others. I'm sure some poor unsuspecting souls fall for these scams, so beware! alice

I forward all my dodgy e-mails to scams at fraudwatch mainly the banking or e-bay ones and a couple I have had from Africa asking me to share in a fortune!! scams is very good and they warn you if anything is doing the rounds.

go to www.grisoft.com download avg antivirus its free,this system will check all incomming emails for bugs etc and will fire them off before you can open them