Another Scam Alert
 

I received an e-mail today regarding a court appearance that was unexpected. Here is a copy of the e-mail with comments to follow. The e-mail also came with an attachment the I did not open.
=============================
Notice to Appear,

Hereby you are notified that you have been scheduled to appear for your hearing that will take place in the court of Washington in January 14, 2014 at 09:00 am.

Please bring all documents and witnesses relating to this case with you to Court on your hearing date.

The copy of the court notice is attached to this letter.
Please, read it thoroughly.

Note: If you do not attend the hearing the judge may hear the case in your absence.

Yours truly,
Margaret Smith
Clerk to the Court.
==========================
Notice there is no mention of my name in the e-mail. Also is it Washington state or DC? Then it shows Clerk to the Court, in most stated it is known as Clerk of Court and not Clerk to the Court. Now for the name Margaret Smith. Same name of tennis star Margaret Smith Court who won 24 Grand Slams.

Now to top things of I have never been in Washington state and the last time I was in DC was back in 1993 driving on the Belt Way on the way back home after attending a drag race in Virginia.

Here is another thing that I have never heard of, "If you do not attend the hearing the judge may hear the case in your absence." in the US court system.

Be careful out there. Yes I am interested to read the attachment but it has been deleted.

VG

SPAM time: watch out....I just received this, supposedly from Walmart (which I have NOT ordered anything)...check out the last paragraph, supposed to be the word YOUR, not YOU.....Click on for Form- watch out!!...last time I did that, I got a virus and paid $93 to get it out....I know you guys are Smarter than this.....

Sir/Madam,

Your order WM-005350389 delivery has failed because the address was not specified correctly. You are advised to fill this form and send it back to us.

If your reply is not received within one week, you will be paid your money back but 17% will be deducted since you order was booked for Christmas holidays.

2013 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

It's like e-mails I get from what looks like a legit business like Amazon about an order that's being held up for whatever reason and I can clear it up by e-mail with credit card info. Don't forget all the money i'm getting from that Nigerian prince which I haven't one dime yet!

Yes, there are a surprising number of Nigerian princes aren't there?

Change your password you all been hacked.Get a gmail account. I'd say all of you have a email address from one of the ISP's around the villages.

Actually, I would think the person who was hacked was someone who has the "target" in their addressbook.

But I'm merely a user, not a computer guru.

I never open e-mails I don't know the sender no matter how official they may look.

Basic rule of thumb, if the grammar is bad, assume it is from an overseas hacker. I have my email set up to show me a preview or I can simply scroll over and see what part of what is written. If the grammar is bad, even if from the alleged President, it goes directly to trash. Most importantly, don't open them if you can possibly avoid doing so.

mine was from best buy,which i did not respond,ask wife if she had ordered anything for Christmas or her B'day ,and she said no.so,after a trip thru Norton AV was delated. Oh,the thrills of the holidays,

This sounds bogus to me!!!! Thet can always contact you via regular mail if it is legitimate and need to reach you.

Something like this, I would call Walmart Customer Service, and inform them, I receive this type of communication, and verify whether it came from them. If it didn't,Ii would expect them to be appreciative, of being made aware, this is going on.

I don't open e-mails if there is no subject text written. I received an e-mail from someone I knew, with no subject text. When I accidently opened it, there was a virus, that I ran a virus protection program, to get rid of it.

What a pain in the neck, or lower. :D

Husband received the court appearance email also. We simply deleted it.

They want you to respond, it validates your email address.

Like others, I have received a number of these "Notice to Appear" emails. I Googled the return address of one of these emails and found the following:

"McDermott Security Alert

A message to our Clients and Associates about a recent fraudulent e-mail event targeting McDermott and other law firms:

We have recently received reports of a fraudulent e-mail incident (also known as spoofing) using McDermott and other law firms as the sender (e.g. no_reply@mwe.com). The message could be identified by the subject heading “Notice to Appear at Court" and may contain instructions to obtain personal information. Should you receive this message, please delete it immediately and do not open any attachment as it may contain a virus or other malware.

We want to assure you that McDermott is not connected to this incident and our Firm has not been compromised. Protecting client information is a top priority at McDermott and we take it very seriously. If you have any questions or concerns, please click here.

Thank you."

The attachment is a .zip file....DO NOT OPEN THIS ATTACHMENT, just delete and move on. These kind of scam emails tend to show up this time of year and can seriously damage your computer if opened.

Paypal security - yikes
 

I recently went into my Paypal account to update credit card information. I haven't used Paypal in five years. My credit card information expired years ago and I hadn't bothered to update it.

Under "authorized users" in my account, there was a name I didn't recognize, accompanied by an address in Algeria. I talked to Paypal Security who admitted it was quite possible that this could happen. I'm glad my credit card information had expired or I'm sure the hacker would have been using my card. I immediately deleted my Paypal account.

Oh, by the way, the security guy at Paypal said every internet user should use a different password for every financial account, banks and credit cards. And each password should be changed monthly. If you use the same password for all your financial accounts, once a hacker gets a password match with a user ID, (using their sophisticated methods), they will have access to all accounts.

The world gets more complicated all the time. (Don't flame me, I'm just repeating the info the Paypal Security guy gave me).