I use the preview screen with my email so I don't have to open them. I get plenty of spam and scams. I know this is one. However, I wonder if others in a big company might get this, be insulted or hurt and click on the link. Here's the email.

"This is not meant to be an insult or
anything but people are talking at work
about your weight.I thought you should know.
I know it would upset you if you knew but I
know some friends here and outside work that
have used a program that worked within weeks.
I am not pushing anything on you but thought
it wouldn't hurt if you looked at it. I also
think I am doing you a favor as it's always
nice when people talk about how much better
you look than how much you've been putting on.
I hope I am not intruding, just trying to help
out. My cousin & friend Mike used this and it
helped alot. Here is the site I know they got
it from direct.
Here's where "Mark" put in the link. I hope I've removed it.

Again, I'm just trying to help out.
Thanks for listening.

-Mark"

I don't understand the angle here...What if you don't have a Mark? What if you do and go punch him in the face for being such a jerk off? Is clicking the link just to give you a cookie or virus or is it to try and sell you a weight loss cure?

That's why I mentioned how someone in a big company could be hurt, etc. We have 5 people here, so I knew it was not from anyone here.

I think they want you to click on the link and sell you something. However, these things are usually scams. You'll place an order and be strung along for over 90 days and then they've got your money. You can only dispute a credit card charge within 90 days. Many of these types of people will keep promising shipment and give you fake tracking numbers just to get you to go over 90 days.

Some of them do want to hack into your computer. It's just not worth clicking on that link.

I posted this because I can see how someone could have their feelings hurt.

Or quite likely the link contains a virus. Unfortunately I am sure there are a lot of people who would not know better than to open it, though that is hard to believe.

I remember reading some advice column a million years ago. Someone had received an ad in the mail with a similiar message. The person who rec'd happened to be overweight and was extremely hurt.

I believe most people are savvy enough to know better, but obviously this scam works on someone. Otherwise they wouldn't bother sending it in the first place.

You would THINK by now that everyone would have enough sense not to. But sorry to say...that isn't the case. My mom uses a computer at home and work, so she should have enough sense to know about the Nigerian scam? She wishes she did. So does my brother who bailed them out with a loan to cover the phoney check when they got scammed.

Oh my! How horrible! I'm glad your brother could help!

Could you please tell us what happened? I know about the email scams and asking for the bank account, but I think you could shed some light on some new ones that are happening now. The new ones actually have a bank logo on them and according to Clark Howard, many many people are being ripped off.

Actually I have gotten something like that in the mail several years ago... unsigned, of course. I just tossed it and considered the source; someone was very ignorant and unkind to send such a thing IMO.

I don't know the full details, for some reason, they don't like to talk about it...would you? But this one was snail mail to my daughter. It was a $2,500 cashiers check that she was to put in her account, then mail out checks from her account to other people, for some of that, and she'd keep some. Mom and dad used their account since she didn't have one. They assumed that a cashier's check was perfectly valid. This was a foreign cashier's check, and it wasn't valid. So it bounced, so did the other checks they wrote, and they were out fees and the money, etc.

My bank has a list on all their windows now that issues an FBI alert of what kinds of checks to look for that you're supposed to inform the teller if you're cashing a foreign check, or a check that requires you to write out other checks immediately, etc.

LOL! I just this very minute got this email from "Mark". I wonder if the spammer is getting email addresses from profiles here etc since it is a weight loss site. I wouldn't fall for it since I'm a SAHM, rofl.

If you put your email address in your profile, you are asking for SPAM. When you register, you must give a valid email addy but it is accessible only by 3FC MODs and ADMINs.

I swear these creeps get addies from those darn email chain letters and jokes that everyone sends. You know the ones with 50 email addies attached. I just use the BCC function when forwarding items to multiple users to protect their addies.

I got the same email a few days ago, lol. But it wasn't to my 3fc email, it was to one of my spammy email addresses that I don't use for anything except websites where I'm required to provide an email but I'm not sure what they want it for, so I use a special junk email for it. I think this particular email is picking up on popularity and will quickly be as common as the other mass spam mailings.

Btw, spammers don't always have to find or be given an actual email address. One way to generate mailing lists is to use software that generates unlimited combinations of names, words, or jumbled letters and numbers as potential email addresses and send out millions of email to test them out. Addresses that bounce as invalid get removed from the list. Addresses that don't bounce end up on a list they assume is valid, and sell it to spammers.

This is horrible! I'm so glad to find all of this out, thank you!

Right Suzanne ~ I get "junk" all the time sent to my box that isn't even close to my e-mail address except for the G maybe! Thank goodness Norton takes care of it!!

Years ago (the early 90s?) I got that very same letter in the regular mail - I wondered for a long time who I knew that would send me that! It was hand written, unsigned, had no return address & the stuff advertised was inserted & looked like a newspaper clipping.

I think if I'd gotten it in an email I'd have just dismissed it as junk mail... I know better now. Plus there's so much junk selling stuff for absolutely everything (and I KNOW this) that I wouldn't even worry about it.