Spam Mail?

[Janna B.]

I received the following message via my email.

[Mel Sandberg]

Janna, for me, it is hard to tell.

[liath-hollins]

Sounds like a scam to me. Nobody in Britain refers to their children as ‘Junior’! Or gets the gender of their child mixed up…

The bit that rings the alarm bells is: “in order for me to arrange for his payment before he travels down”

That means they’ll probably send a cheque for too much money and ask you to wire the extra back to them – after which you discover their cheque was made of rubber!

I wouldn’t bother replying, but if you do enter into correspondence, be very, very wary about any financial dealings with these people.

[tula-ruggiero]

This looks exactly like spam.

[catherine-rogers]

Trust me, this is spam; don’t reply, just delete. This is a very common con. What they want to do is send you a check for more than you charge, then ask you to refund the difference. Their check is bad but that won’t show up for weeks. Meantime your money will be gone and you will have no recourse.

[Mel Sandberg]

This is very interesting.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Anyone who emails you out of the blue “enquiring” about lessons with lots of vague details is spamming. Beyond that, these emails are phrased in similar ways. What is troubling is that they are improving their English and their writing format so that someday they will be able to fool many of us. So, it is better not to answer any email inquiries unless they are verifiable. Now that they have read that, they will start including some phony verification in their emails.

Let’s just say, for

[Mel Sandberg]

Saul, thanks for also confirming that it is spam, but as you put it, anybody who enquires “out of the blue”…..

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

One that does not mention bananas.

[Janna B.]

I love all of you on harp column! Thank you for saving me from possible disaster!

For the record I do have my email listed on several harp teacher sites, but so far all inquiries have been from people in my area.

[Mel Sandberg]

Saul, sorry to keep harping on this topic, but something intrigues me, and you seem to know the answers…..

You say that the purpose of the spammer is to obtain your bank details, and transfer more money than the lessons, and then ask you to repay the overpayment, and then bounce the cheque, so that you lose this overpayment out of your account.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

The ideas was that they are reading these forums to figure out how to scam us, so I wanted them to think they should mention bananas in their letters, which would be an obvious tip-off to us, but by explaining it, now they may know what I was up to.

Even if you could cash a check they sent you, they want to gain your bank account and email for identity theft, and when the check was returned, they would have your account number. I don’t know how it all works, but I’ve heard that some irate people went to Nigeria to track the crooks down and were murdered. I don’t understand why it isn’t a major book or movie yet, this stuff.

[Mel Sandberg]

I see now what you mean – about the bananas, and as well as that they want your account number for identity theft. Thanks for the explanation.

[Author]

Posts