Ah, the delights of spammers

[moosmom]

I get them all the time. I've won the Australian Lottery, inherited money from some long lost relative in Nigeria (Nigeria???? right). Everytime I get one, it immediately goes into the "spam" pile.

[kokopup]

I have all the latest in spyware ,malware, etc, etc but i still have a lot to slip by in spite of all these programs. My real problem though is my virus,malware software blocking files that I want to go through. I have a netbook that I use a lot at night and a desktop that I use during the day. Starting a week ago I found that my virus software blocked Word files that I tried sending from my netbook to my desktop. i would get a message saying " OE has detected an unsafe file that has been deleted." It did not put it in quarantine somewhere so I could retrieve it. The virus software just deleted the file no matter what format I used to send it.

I finally had to resort to copying my file by using a flash drive. All efforts to email
a simple Word file failed.

[Laura's Babies]

I got a new one for all of you! Spam by phone! I got a phone call today warning me my extended warranty on my vehicle was fixing to expire and I needed to renew it if I wanted to keep it. I wasn't aware you could even GET a warranty on a 9 years old vehicle with over 100K miles on it, much less that I had one on it... Did I do wrong in hanging up on them?

[pomtzu]

I have also already won billions, turned down offers to partner with a scammer that would net me millions, gotten mail from servicemen who have found barrels of money on Sadams property and want me to help get it to the U.S., sob stories of dying women whose husband and children have been killed and they want me to invest their millions in charities in the U.S., mail from the FBI directing me to deal with someone in Nigeria and that it is all legit, and on and on and on.......
The one that tickled my funny bone is one I got a couple of days ago. It was from a 17 year old whose parents were killed in some horrible accident, leaving her all their millions. Of course she couldn't get the money till she was in her mid 20's, so she wanted to sign it over to me, and then help her get to the U.S. She is presently in an Ethiopian refugee camp. Gee - I wonder when refugee camps got computers for their "residents" to use???
What half way intelligent individual could believe any of these?????

[Asiel]

What you're getting sounds twice as bad as what I get here. My gosh, some of those I never heard of and I thought I heard them all.....guess news ones are thought up every day. Those refugee camps are getting more and more modern aren't they ; )

[Catty1]

kokpup - Spyware and antivirus programs don't stop spam...they have nothing to do with it (I presume you are talking about email spam).

How many programs are you running?

Not sure what "OE" is, but if it is deleting safe files, I'd dump the program!

[kokopup]

Catty1

Not sure what "OE" is, but if it is deleting safe files, I'd dump the program!

It appears that Outlook express (OE) has added a feature in a recent update
that deletes files that meet certain criteria. I'm not sure what it uses to determine a file has a virus but it isn't doing a very good job. The files it is rejecting are Word files I'm sending to myself. There is a absolutely no chance of a virus.

Since this just started it must have come through on one of my recent MS
updates. I have good virus software without Outlook getting into the act.

If you do a Google search on "OE deleting unsafe files" you will see that many people have had the same issue.

[Karen]

Okay, the past few weeks, my inbox is full of many many many emails purporting to be young ladies - all 25, scantily clad, etc., - who "love sex" and want to "firetruck" minus the ire-t, but with at least a couple extra uuus in that word.

Dear spammers,

While i am now widowed, even if I wanted to "get together tomorrow" for some fire trucking, my partner of choice would not be 25, would not be female, and would have better sense than emailing pictures like that.

Also, spammers, I am allergic to pot,/marijuana don't need it in oil form either!

And, spammers, telling me you have hacked into my email and are blackmailing me because you control my computer and recorded me visiting x-rated sites, try at least sending that to someone more gullible, and try an account with a name attached to it, not for example, "[email protected]."

[wombat2u2004]

What half way intelligent individual could believe any of these?????

They make millions out of gullible people...that's why they do it, because sometimes it works.

[smokey the elder]

I got a new one for all of you! Spam by phone! I got a phone call today warning me my extended warranty on my vehicle was fixing to expire and I needed to renew it if I wanted to keep it. I wasn't aware you could even GET a warranty on a 9 years old vehicle with over 100K miles on it, much less that I had one on it... Did I do wrong in hanging up on them?

That's been showing up on both my cell phone and landline. My car is 8 years old with 150K+ miles on it.