Anyone Recognize This Name?

[falcon409]

"Austin Davis?"

I received an e-mail from him a while ago with a list of several other names I recognized as being associated with SOH from time to time. There was no text, only a link about "builtmaldives_dot_com" which I didn't click on. Just wondering if anyone knows of him.

[Shessi]

Hi F,
No, almost certainly a hacked and harvested email address list (you being on it), and a financial scam...wise to be careful, block and delete.

(A general helpful tip to all, just to be helpful being in home IT, I get people to ask themselves three questions about emails...1) Did you ask for or expect the email? 2) Is it about something you want? 3) Does it seem genuine to you? If you can answer NO to two or more of the questions, then just block and then delete.)

Cheers

Shessi

[mal998]

If you're not sure who it came from do not click on it. I know the impulse is to open it just in case it's important, but don't. Just delete it. Better safe than sorry.

[MrZippy]

I get those from time to time and from things like Linkedin and other sites that say people are looking for you. Also get those phone calls saying the IRS is coming for me if I don't pay up. Delete, delete, delete!

[srgalahad]

Ed,

Check your PMs for more...

Since I am one of the lucky recipients of the pile of crap I can pretty-well confirm it is a harvested list and/or another sort of hack. Delete without reading (there may be more of the same sort coming) and if you can, train your email to treat it as junk/scam email.

Considering the various sources of the emails, it's pretty clear the list has been shared amongst the cesspool of trolls and will probably continue.

[blanston12]

I have seen that a lot, always best to check the from email address, while the name is going to be one you recognise, the actual address (name@server.xyz) will not.

[gman5250]

Lots and lots and lots of nasties out there harvesting, hacking, trolling and generally skimming data for nefarious purposes. Many can be indistinguishable from real people, but are bots and ai. Now is a time for extreme diligence protecting yourself. The web is not a really nice place any more unfortunately. Just my two cents Ed, but you have a lot at stake and have lost data before.

[n4gix]

I got a nice phone call last week from a charming lady who began by mentioning that they'd noticed some unusual activity from my "Apple device." I let her ramble on for quite a bit, in the meantime not paying the slightest attention to what she was saying...

...finally after about 10 minutes she paused for breath and I managed to interject a question. "Oh, is this only about Apple devices? Well my dear, the only Apple I own is sitting on my kitchen counter and will be going into my Indian Lamb Curry for dinner tonight.

[Daube]

Hi F,

(A general helpful tip to all, just to be helpful being in home IT, I get people to ask themselves three questions about emails...1) Did you ask for or expect the email? 2) Is it about something you want? 3) Does it seem genuine to you? If you can answer NO to two or more of the questions, then just block and then delete.)

Hmmm I'm not sure... with such logic, I would end up deleting the emails I get from the tax office...
More seriously though: very good advice.

[MrZippy]

I got a nice phone call last week from a charming lady who began by mentioning that they'd noticed some unusual activity from my "Apple device." I let her ramble on for quite a bit, in the meantime not paying the slightest attention to what she was saying...

...finally after about 10 minutes she paused for breath and I managed to interject a question. "Oh, is this only about Apple devices? Well my dear, the only Apple I own is sitting on my kitchen counter and will be going into my Indian Lamb Curry for dinner tonight.

Good one, Bill! I get the guy from India...lesse, first name Dave...yeah, right! Who has noticed errors on my computer and wants me to let him have access so he can fix them all for me. What a nice guy Not for all the curry in India

[huub vink]

Like everybody already mentioned, when I were you I would definitely not click on the link.

The name "Austin Davis "however pops up when you do a search on Avsim. There is scenery uploaded in 2005 by a guy with this name. So the harvesting most likely was done via flightsim connections.

Cheers,
Huub

[IanP]

It normally means someone who has both yours and "the sender's" details in their Outlook or whatever contacts.

This sort of spam usually picks both the sender and recipient address from the list, disguising who actually has computer flu!

Ian P.

[fsafranek]

Any email from someone you don't know with just a link should be deleted immediately. Don't even waste time thinking about it. Even if you recognize some of the names of other recipients.

[PHo17]

In addition to said before there are also scam EMails which look like coming from some reliable firm. Logos and everything else in the message seem to be right. In this case also it is wise to look carefully the sender's address. For example in message from Safe Firm Ltd it might be helpdesk@SafeFirme.com. Usually those sender's addresses however differ more from the real one.

I have got this kind of scam post too.

[stansdds]

I will, on occasion, get an email from a friend or even a family member and the message is nothing but a link. I won't even click on those. Anyone who knows me is going to write something that I can recognize as being a legitimate email.

I also get emails and there is no sender name. Those are immediately deleted and not opened.

Then there are all the other emails, likely ads for some product I'm not interested in. If I don't recognize the sender, they do not get opened, but are deleted.

[WarHorse47]

I also get e-mails (supposedly) from friends that contain nothing but a link. The actual e-mail of the sender is not the actual e-mail address I had on file.

Over time the source would change, and I finally concluded that whoever is sending me these e-mails got the names of my friends from Facebook. I can only assume that one of my real friends got their account hacked which then allowed whoever to collect the names of my friends and attempt to send me these bogus e-mails.