This whole scam thing is getting tiresome but...
We again have experienced a hijacked member account sending messages to our
list. The only way to avoid these obvious phishing emails is to put the
Mosaic list on Emergency Moderation.
So we are on emergency moderation at this time. Again, this is NOT a
situation that I want to enforce but it saves members from being feed
additional messages from scammers and keeps members accounts being
disabled due to software reports of sending large amounts of messages.
This type of hijacked email is done through hacking a users' password -
generally on a Yahoo, AOL, Gmail or other free email account.
From my experience in educational technology, I can tell you that this is
extremely easy to do. I have personally been able to guess a password in
under 5 tries with most staff at my school. So hardened passwords will
definitely make this type of scam more difficult. Those of your using any
free email account should immediately change your password to protect your
account...and please do not change your password to a pet, offspring, or any
other easily guessed password.
The typical hijacked user email account will send out a plea for help such
as:
I'm caught up in a real mess and i need your help. I'm sorry I
didn't
inform you about my, I had a trip to the London, United Kingdom...
...the key word on most of these is UK or England...
Gosh, I hope you are informed enough NEVER, and I repeat NEVER, NEVER to
reply to this sort of thing. The message is from a hijacked email account.
Replying in any way just adds to the trouble...
When you reply to the individual person in the message, it is forwarded to
a scammer (err...criminal?!?) who will contact you to try to get funds from
you. DO NOT EVER REPLY TO THIS TYPE OF MESSAGE!
Replying to the message to our Mosaic list of 3000 members does not do any
good as well. As reported above, do NOT every reply. DO NOT EVER REPLY, even
if you personally know the sender.
Please TRASH the message and move on with your life. Again, TRASH THE
MESSAGE!
Be aware that any time I see this type of phishing message to our list, that
I put the list on emergency moderation. This is done to keep an additional
10-20 messages regarding the *obvious* scam to be perpetuated to our
membership (deep sigh). Unfortunately it also requires my approval on
legitimate list messages.
So, please IGNORE any message from this list asking you to help a person.
I'm an educator too, and really want to help everyone (it's in our nature!).
BUT do not ever help anyone online without hours of investigation.
IGNORE, IGNore, igNOre, and IGNORE this type of message.
Replying in any way to the Mosaic membership of 3000+ causes additional
waste of resources and in some obtuse way also perpetuates the scam.
I've already rejected a half dozen message related the scam. Please don't
take these types of rejection personally, but as good online stewards, we
cannot post another 100,000+ messages on some scam
Thanks,
Keith Mack
Web Administrator
http://www.literacyworkshop.org
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