New for me

[Peter Paddison]

I have had a strange situation (to me at least)

Yesterday I received an email from ***@terancamews.com.au which I
recognised as my cousin and it was headed "Christmas Newsletter 2007." It
was dated 4 December.

Today I noticed an email said to be from me headed "December 79% OFF". When
I receive doubtful emails, I extract them and then look at the contents
which I found exactly the same as my cousin's message which described a
recent tour he had made.

I then looked at the email and found it was clear but had an attachment
which told me my credit card (last four numbers quoted but incorrect) limit
had been exceeded and invited me to apply for an increase.

I have never had this happen before but what is going on? I do not know
which information might help but against received it says: from
vila.orpheusnet.co.uk [194.93.128.82]) by orac.orpheusnet.co.uk
(8.14.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id 1B4B06C3030557)

I do not get a lot of emails but my proportion of spams I guess is about the
same as others but nothing like this before. Is there anything I should or
should not do?

Peter Paddison

[Paul Vigay]

Post by Peter Paddison
recognised as my cousin and it was headed "Christmas Newsletter 2007." It
was dated 4 December.
Today I noticed an email said to be from me headed "December 79% OFF".
When I receive doubtful emails, I extract them and then look at the
contents which I found exactly the same as my cousin's message which
described a recent tour he had made.

Have you spoken to your cousin? Was it definitely describing a recent tour
he had made, or did it just appear as that? Some spammers are very devious
and you have to read twice in order to spot it's a spam and not a genuine
message. It might have been describing a generic tour, but just appear to
have your cousins email address faked on the top. It might have even been
coincidental with a real tour (for every million fake tour emails the
spammers send out, they're bound to hit a few 100 people who /have/ just
been on tour).

Post by Peter Paddison
I then looked at the email and found it was clear but had an attachment
which told me my credit card (last four numbers quoted but incorrect)
limit had been exceeded and invited me to apply for an increase.

It could be that your cousin genuinely sent it, but he's got a virus on his
machine which is going through his address book in order to find emails to
use as fake headers. If you're in his address book then it could be sending
out virus emails purporting to come from you or anyone else listed.

Just recently spam has been getting a lot more devious, so you're welcome
to bounce it onto the ***@orpheus email address if you want me to
double-check it for you.

Paul