Anyone remember Renpei? Advice please.

[Annie]

Renpei was the scammer from a year ago who stole from me and a fair few others here. You may remember, I contacted his mother and she put right her son's wrongs. That was the end of it as far as I was concerned. As far as I am aware, mother was going to take away his mouse and internet access and pay her back.

I have just received an email, claiming to be from his mother. It has the rather confusing subject line 'Com Mended.' The message itself reads 'I've sent you a confidential message' and then there's a link to open. No, I have not clicked on the link. Am I right to be suspicious? What would you do?

[jar]

Yes, be suspicious.

[LagNut]

I wouldn't open it.

I hesitate to open links even if I know and trust the person.

To me, extremely fishy.

I'm not sure I'd even reply, as if it is him taking over his mom's account, now he has your email.

My take, could be wrong, but I really, really doubt it.

Good luck,
Mike

[Annie]

That's good advice. I think he probably has taken over her account. I think I should call her and tell her.

[Paul-H]

Rule number one, never ever open email attachments or click on links within an email, even if you do know the sender, but especially if you don't.

Paul

[carlos.q]

It could also be that someone hacked her e-mail account and is sending you this message. Seen a lot of those going around lately. Anyway what the others on this thread have said is correct: do not open click on the link.

[tarheel1]

I just saw his name yesterday and couldnt remember where I remembered it from. Thanks for refreshing my memory.

[Annie]

Hello Renpei. I've just called your mother. I expect she will want to have a little chat with you.

[Jon Szanto]

I'd actually be more of the mind that it's a hacked email account. I get a fair number of these, even names I know that wouldn't be sending me anything squicky. Leave off the name, but could you give us the domain? I see stuff like this from Yahoo and Hotmail accounts all the time.

[tandaina]

Yeah actually sounds more like a very traditional email hacking. The hacker probably sent the exact same message to everyone in her address book.

[oldstoat]

Looks to me like a hacked account; I've had 2 or 3 odd looking emails from people I know who we're most embarrassed to find out. One had an AOL account and one gmail

[Cob]

This has happened to quite a lot of people, including me - somehow some awful scum gets hold of one's email ID and sends messages out like the one you have described. Just delete it.

Cob

[LagNut]

Even if her account was hacked, she should know. Other folks will be more likely to click the link if it's a hacked account...

Cheers

[Annie]

I'd actually be more of the mind that it's a hacked email account. I get a fair number of these, even names I know that wouldn't be sending me anything squicky. Leave off the name, but could you give us the domain? I see stuff like this from Yahoo and Hotmail accounts all the time.

gmail.com

[Annie]

I had a reply from his 'mother' claiming that her computer got infected. Having had numerous emails from this woman previously, this reply from 'her' doesn't stack up. I've reported it to the police in the kid's home town.

[View from the Loft]

Given your past experiences with the son, I understand your suspicion/caution. However, my first thought was oh - virus/malware on her computer has sent this email and link to everyone in her contacts list, and she probably has no idea.

The main thing is that you didn't click on the lnk.

[Flounder]

I've gotten spam from friend's email addresses before, I'm not sure if it's even an account being hacked, or just some sort of ID spoofing or something.

[Jon Szanto]

I've reported it to the police in the kid's home town.

Just out of curiosity, precisely what did you report?

[SteveE]

I've gotten spam from friend's email addresses before, I'm not sure if it's even an account being hacked, or just some sort of ID spoofing or something.

Heck, I've even gotten spam from my own email account. What the scammers do is gather email addresses from a machine you once sent a legitimate email to, then use your email address as the sender address in their junk. This is especially obvious if the attached file is in the .zip format, as the scammers can hide a lot of junk code in a compressed .zip file, and once you click on it, they can have their way.

I instruct corporate users who get these emails to just delete them. Do not worry - if it was something important, it would be resent. Scammers usually don't have a way to resend lost email. Also, how many people do you know who have so much to send you that it has to be in a compressed .zip file?

[mhosea]

I would not discount the "infection" explanation as yet, regardless of the prior circumstances. It is far too common.