Important Message? Or Scam?
Mon 25 Jun 2007 12:14 AM

I got the following email today:

hi.. are you still at this email address? I was told you might be... if you are, PLEASE email me back at this email address [address elided]. I'm supposed to relay an important message.

Ummm... right... A couple of things make me just a tad suspicious about this one: First, the message is clearly a forward - it's repeated three times in the body of the message, from other people. Second, there are 374 addresses in the blind copy line of each of the repeats. Just how important can this message be to me if there are over 1100 other people who are getting it? Third, this is coming from a country to which I have never been, and in which I know no one.

So... what are the chances that this is just a scam? Just an attempt to get me to reply, thereby confirming that this is a "live" email address? I'd say pretty danged close to 100%, wouldn't you?

Folks, when you get something like this, stop and think twice. If these people actually had something important to say to you, would they send a blind email to 1100 other people? If it was really that important, might they not have a law firm handle it?

In general, whenever you get something like this, think twice. At least. In this case, I think you should just dump it. It's clearly a scam.