Thomas Muir stuck in Africa?

[dmu3tem]

Here is some further information about what to do.

Look up ASKLEO on the internet

Thomas (Muir)

[presbyter]

If anyone can provide reliable advice as to how to prevent or (God forbid) deal with this scam, please post it here. I believe that that would be a useful service to our readers.

Perhaps admin might inform the Mauritian embassy

[presbyter]

Hmmm, Presbyter - guess you're a tad more advanced than me on this kind of stuff!

Deferentially,

Q

Not really - your computer will have the facility to show long headers on e-mails - and you'll have software in your system somewhere to do a "whois?", ping, finger, lookup, traceroute etc....
Perhaps the device we should all bear in mind is our Firewall. (not that that is much use, I guess, with a hotmail address which can be used from any computer)

[dunstan]

If anyone can provide reliable advice as to how to prevent or (God forbid) deal with this scam, please post it here. I believe that that would be a useful service to our readers.

The scamsters usually do this by sending a mail which looks legitimate, and takes you to a lookalike site to your mailbox into which you enter your username and password. Googlemail is by far the best at removing and tagging these phishing mails quickly, hotmail and yahoo much less so.

Firefox 3 has good mechanisms for flagging dodgy sites. But in the end, the simplest protection is to never trust anything in your inbox is actually from the person it claims to be from.

[Dot]

Email received from hotmail, (see below), showing concern at abuse.
They wish me to provide the following, but I do not use Hotmail (nor do I wish to).
I can get the full header info from "properties - details" (that which presbyter displayed in his 1st post), but I don't know if that's what the guy wants.

Message received from hotmail
"For us to further investigate, please write us back and provide a copy of email message that you have received including its full headers. To the view the full message headers of an e-mail, you must use the full version of Windows Live Hotmail to have this functionality. If you are not using the full version of Windows Live Hotmail, click the "Try the full version of Windows Live Hotmail" when you are viewing your account's messages. You can also click the "Try the full version" link when viewing the Today page of your account."

Can anyone help?

Dot

[quaeritor]

Dot

I could do this if a Hotmail account is required, but you could do it - right click the offending email from not-Thomas, choose properties in the context menu, choose the Details tab, click the "message source" button, copy and paste the text.

Or, if all that is specific to my email client program, tell me whom you emailed with your report - I've looked at the Hotmail entry screen and can't find anything analogous to "abuse@hotmail.com" or some such to report to.

Moderator: is there/do we need a tech topic for this kind of stuff - I like it (comes from 40 years playing the techo) but it's not very liturgical.

Q

[Southern Comfort]

I can get the full header info from "properties - details" (that which presbyter displayed in his 1st post), but I don't know if that's what the guy wants.

Yes. Give them the e-mail plus the details that presybter gave in both his posts.

[presbyter]

Perhaps the device we should all bear in mind is our Firewall.

Or we could all switch to Macs – don't worry, I'm getting me coat!

<--------- is a passionate macolyte - and watches with sadness as the children in the parish primary school labour with those things which have glazed frames, throughout which we see the outside world.
Life would be so much easier for them if the aforementioned natural light ingress devices had an integrated suite of iLife, iWorks and iEverythingelse seemlessly running on a machine that never fails............ and which gives easy access to an originating IP (to get back on topic)

[gwyn]

I receive this official looking e-mail this morning delivered to my Hotmail Account:

Dear Account User

This Email is from Hotmail Customer Care and we are sending it to every Hotmail Email User Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of Hotmail accounts so we are shutting down some Hotmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all Hotmail users and removal of all unused Hotmail Accounts, Hotmail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* Username: .............................
* Password: ................................
* Date of Birth: ............................
* Country Or Territory: ................

After following the instructions in the sheet, your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thanks for your attention to this request. We apologize for any inconveniences.

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his/her account after two weeks of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.
Sincerely,
The Windows Live Hotmail Team

You could easily be caught out, couldn't you?

Be sober, be watchful. These people are very clever, they have time on their hands and a thirst for your money.

Gwyn

[Dot]

Well done, Gwyn - a timely warning. It was a similar message that caught out Thomas and persuaded him to submit his account details. I have sent microsoft all the info advised.

If anyone does not know what they're doing, it's me, as my username indicates:

Doughty Old Technophobe

[Southern Comfort]

Hotmail only close down accounts that have been inactive for 6 months. Do not be fooled by e-mails such as the above.

[monty]

Never, ever send password information to anyone.

[mcb]

If anyone does not know what they're doing, it's me, as my username indicates: Doughty Old Technophobe

I'm glad you're not dowdy any more, Dot. I never thought you were, anyway.

[Dot]

Dowdy, doughty, whatever ..... can't remember what "t" word prompted the acronym in the first place. I'm glad you find the forum such a valuable research tool, mcb.....

Did you ever spot the picture of the eponymous Eastenders' character that went up briefly against my real name? admin claimed there was a strong resemblance, which you might care to refute in my defence.

dot

[musicus]

Err... What was the topic again?