[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by bonrich

Unfortunately, the scammer scare has permeated email messaging, so to be on the safe side, we do not open any kind of greeting card sent as an attachment. We do have friends that use this method, but we err on the safe side and delete them, sadly to the dismay of the ones that use this now.

I thought so. I guess I had better send them again and this time copy and paste into the body of the email.

[skyguy79]

Originally Posted by graciegirl

I thought so. I guess I had better send them again and this time copy and paste into the body of the email.

That may not work. You're probably copying a temporary copy on your own hard drive, if that's so then it won't be available to your recipient. Want to test, just send me a copy first and I'll let you know if it works OK!

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by bkcunningham1

I didn't get a private message on TOTV, only the email in my private yahoo account. So it appears TOTV has been hacked. Beware of emails you open everyone.

I haven't received these nuisance messages. BK, I notice you include your e-mail address on your Profile. I don't include my e-mail address on my Profile. Perhaps this is only happening to those members who include an e-mail address on their Profile?

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by skyguy79

You just have to be careful about any suspicious looking emails.

I recently opened an attachment sent from a friend that I know well and trust. It contained a virus. He actually hadn't sent the e-mail to me, it was done via his account in the middle of the night. Now I just delete anything I'm not expecting.

[2BNTV]

I received an e-mail a while back that had no subject from a friend of mine. I inadvertly opened it. Fortunately, it was from a reputable business. How they hold of his name, I'm not sure of.

It is very important that you keep your computer up to date with virus protection and malwarebytes. I have been using free MS Essentials and Malwarebytes downloaded via Google for two years now and no problems..

[skyguy79]

Originally Posted by Barefoot

I recently opened an attachment sent from a friend that I know well and trust. It contained a virus. He actually hadn't sent the e-mail to me, it was done via his account in the middle of the night. Now I just delete anything I'm not expecting.

What you've described sounds to me like it's a process called spoofing! I've received a numerous amount of these especially while I was the website developer for a fairly large non-profit. They're usually just a method of getting your attention so they can get their message read. But they could also be something a bit more nefarious so you do need to be cautious. Personally I find the best way to identify possible spoofs in emails from friends is to read the topics, and if it makes no sense that the sender would be sending it, then it's probably a spoof! If you want to read more about spoofs, go to:

Email spoofing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I also use a prescreening program for a number of years now to view a basic vesion of emails while they are still on the email server, before I download them to my regular email program. That way I can delete suspicious messages, obvious spam and even emails I would have later deleted anyway. This program is called MailwasherPro. You can learn more about it at this website:

Firetrust | Reliable anti spam blocker with MailWasher Pro, MailWasher Server and Benign

[aussiemom]

Originally Posted by Barefoot

I haven't received these nuisance messages. BK, I notice you include your e-mail address on your Profile. I don't include my e-mail address on my Profile. Perhaps this is only happening to those members who include an e-mail address on their Profile?

I don't have my email posted yet I got one of the messages too. They went through TOTV and I got the message from TOTV that I had a PM message in my box. It's not hard for those that know what they are doing to get such info. We just need to be aware of such things and not give them anymore info than they may already have.

[bkcunningham1]

Originally Posted by Barefoot

I haven't received these nuisance messages. BK, I notice you include your e-mail address on your Profile. I don't include my e-mail address on my Profile. Perhaps this is only happening to those members who include an e-mail address on their Profile?

I hadn't thought of that and had forgotten my email was in my profile, Barefoot. That could be the reason I got the email.

[Virtual Geezer]

Originally Posted by bkcunningham1

I didn't get a private message on TOTV, only the email in my private yahoo account. So it appears TOTV has been hacked. Beware of emails you open everyone.

It is more likely that your Yahoo account has been hacked and not TOTV. The hackers get more by going after Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail that they would ever get from TOTV.

Here is how it works. They hack in your account by either using brute force or maybe getting information that you have on a social media site like Facebook. Once they get into your e-mail account they can either run a bot (a robot program) to look at all the e-mail headers. The bot program cares less about the content of the e-mails and are more interested in collecting e-mail addresses. Once they get a few good hits they add then to their database and make a mass mailing to every address or header that they have. This database will continue to grow like a ponzi scheme.

Another thing the bot programs can do is search your e-mails for key words such as account, bank, transfer, money, and deposit. The bot will flag that e-mail for a closer look and that may be a doorway to your bank accounts.

Best thing to do is change the password on your e-mail account and make it a strong password. Use upper and lower case and mix in some numbers. also don't use things like your dog's name (that you may have pictures of on Facebook) and your house number as that is too easy to crack.

VG

[skyguy79]

Originally Posted by Virtual Geezer

It is more likely that your Yahoo account has been hacked and not TOTV. The hackers get more by going after Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail that they would ever get from TOTV.

Here is how it works. They hack in your account by either using brute force or maybe getting information that you have on a social media site like Facebook. Once they get into your e-mail account they can either run a bot (a robot program) to look at all the e-mail headers. The bot program cares less about the content of the e-mails and are more interested in collecting e-mail addresses. Once they get a few good hits they add then to their database and make a mass mailing to every address or header that they have. This database will continue to grow like a ponzi scheme.

Another thing the bot programs can do is search your e-mails for key words such as account, bank, transfer, money, and deposit. The bot will flag that e-mail for a closer look and that may be a doorway to your bank accounts.

Best thing to do is change the password on your e-mail account and make it a strong password. Use upper and lower case and mix in some numbers. also don't use things like your dog's name (that you may have pictures of on Facebook) and your house number as that is too easy to crack.

VG

VK, I'd agree with you except for one thing. The OP indicated that the email was identified as coming from TOTV and probably had a message that looks something like this:

This is a message from (user) at Talk of The Villages"https://www.talkofthevillages.com /forums/"
Talk of The Villages - The Villages, Florida /forums/
The Talk of The Villages owners cannot accept any responsibility for the contents of the email.

To email (user), you can use this online form:

http://www.talkofthevillages .com/forums/sendmessage.php?do=mailmember........

OR, by email:

EMAIL=user@somewhere.net

What I think they're doing is using existing methods of members being able sending the messages via Email to each other and where they can't access the actual email address as the email address is called from the database by the html. The sender can't see this.

Why I think they do this is in hopes the receipient will respond so they can legally gain ownership to the address (to sell it only) so they can add it to lists of addresses they can sell to spammers and businesses. Until they take that ownership by receiving a message from the legit user, they can't legally sell the address in lists, but once they get your address this way they can do it legally.

This may seem complicated to the average email user, but the important thing to remember is... Do Not reply to these messages which will deny them your email address!

[TOTV Team]

The offending user has been banned and their IP address blocked.