Steve and I have found ourselves in computer hell. Wednesday morning we started getting phone calls from friends and family members who were worried about emails they were receiving from our two separate personal Hotmail accounts. The message they received with the subject line of MY PLIGHT!!!!!! is below:
I’m writing this with tears in my eyes, my family and I came down here to Scotland, United Kingdom for a short vacation unfortunately we got mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed, all cash, credit card and cell were stolen from us but luckily for us we still have our passports with us.We’ve been to the embassy and the Police here but they’re not helping issues at all and our flight leaves in less than hours from now but having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won’t let us leave until we settle the bills, I’m freaked out at the moment.
Cordially,Neena Strichart/Publisher, Signal Tribune new work phone # (562) 595-7900Â
Luckily for us, most of those who contacted us are computer savvy enough to know that the messages were probably a scam, but they still picked up the phone and called us just to make sure we were okay. Besides all of our email contacts being annoyed by the bogus messages, we are now locked out of our Hotmail accounts— accounts we have had for nearly a decade and a half. All of our email contacts are beyond reach and I don’t know if I will ever be able to retrieve messages I had hung on to for safe keeping. The ones I fear losing the most are messages I received from friends and family who have passed away.
Yes, I am an email hoarder— or I guess I should say now a recovering email hoarder. I should have printed out all those messages I had been saving and put them in a folder for posterity instead of relying on my free Hotmail email account to store it for me.
With all the horror stories we’ve heard about computer viruses, scams, spasms and whatever else can befall us with our high-tech ways, you would think I would have been more careful to protect my information. I guess we all feel that whatever bad happens to the other guy couldn’t possibly happen to us.
Please be careful if you should receive a message like the one above. Check it out before you reply, and for goodness sakes never send your credit card information over the Internet without thoroughly checking out the situation.
So, the bottom line is, I apologize to all of my relatives and pals who were sent the goofy message above and I thank you for caring enough to call and check on us.
