I got this e-mail today. I'm going to rush out and give them all of my personal info. Right.

=============================

With Due Repect,

It is my pleasure to write you in respect of our organization. We are experts in the sale of Artworks and we export into Canada/America and some parts of Europe.We are searching for reliable representatives who can help us establish a medium of getting to our customers in the
Canada/America/Europe as well as legally receiving cash and all forms of payment on our behalf from them as our Representative.

Please if interested in transacting business in view of helping us, so our clients could be making payment to you as our representative, we will be very glad. Compensations will be given and other benefits.Contact us for more information, if this proposal is acceptable to you.Please get back to us, so that remuneration can be worked out for your services as our representative in Canada/America/Europe as your location shall determine.

Note: there is no financial obligation required from you and this transaction is 100% risk free.  If this proposal is accepted by you, A swift acknowledgement on the receipt of this mail will be appreciated, furnishing me with your:

FULL NAMES:........
ADDRESS:...........
ZIP CODE:..........
STATE/PROVINCE:....
PHONE/FAX .........
NUMBER:............
OCCUPATION:........
NATIONALITY: ......
AGE:...............

Forward details to:  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We anticipate your earliest response in this regard.

Thanks,
Mr. Hung Chan (PRESIDENT/CEO).
Hong Kong ArtWorks Import & Export Corporation (HAIEC)
Tel/Fax:852-3016-2338

Copyright (C) 2000-2007 Hong Kong ArtWorks Import & Export
Corporation(HAIEC).**** All Rights reserved

I took the live link out and relaced it with the xx's.

Someone posted about something similar to that about a couple of weeks ago.
DPH

Got it too, but as with all such emails I deleted it while it was still in the preview pane. For some reason I seem to recieve about one such email a wee ;*<

mike

Just don't answer them back....     Once you are on their list you'll be getting a lot more...  I have a filter in Fire Fox and in Mc'afee..  to re-route those e-mails to a specific folder... to be deleted..

This is basically the same cover letter that being sent to many people by an outfit from China. It's a phising scam very much like the ones coming out of Africa. There is another letter they use claiming they are a textile company looking for imported and exporters. You're better off deleting it and blocking any future ones.

this was discussed in copyright forum some time ago. is it a scam? yes, I suppose most would agree. however, the topic of artists' agents who do little or nothing for their clients (in return for cash payments or a percentage of royalties) has been rather well-known for an hundred years or more. just ask any stand-up comic. :lol:

Beats me that people even open spam these days after all the warnings.
Best way to get a virus I know.

But some spam is genuinely hard to distinguish from real.

For instance, right now, as I was reading this thread, this box popped
up all on its own, asking me if I want a software update that improves
the security of the software update process. 

This is probably genuine, but it looks and feels like spam, if only because
it's exactly the sort of thing that John Cleese and Eric Idle, the founders
of the spam metaphor, might have written!

If I answer it, will I get another popup that asks me to improve the
security of the improvement in security of the security-improved
updating of the updated secureness of the update?

I blocked the sender of the email. Oddly, my computer is now blocking ebots on this thread too.

Some funny stuff and how to fight back here...

http://www.419eater.com/

Quote - For instance, right now, as I was reading this thread, this box popped
up all on its own, asking me if I want a software update that improves
the security of the software update process. 

Nice... but why would you want to update Apple (OSX) Software Update.... on a Windows box? Heh. (on 2nd thought, it could be something iTunes might do... dunno since I don't do Windows. If you're not sure, you can always dismiss the popup and go launch any updates from within iTunes' own menu). /P

I've gotten several of these types of e-mails recently.  Some of the e-mails assure me that I've won the lottery in the UK (among other things).  I don't live in the UK, and I don't even play the local lotteries where I do live.  So these e-mails go straight into my Junk folder: with all of their embedded links, etc. automatically disabled.  So far, I haven't had to manually intervene in order to deal with a single one of these messages.  The software has automatically taken care of all of them for me.

A hardware firewall together with a software firewall operating behind it -- especially one that's good at the chore of checking incoming e-mail -- will keep out around 95% of what's out there.  Outlook 2007 seems to be pretty good at the task of filtering e-mail, too.

But then of course: there's always that other 5% to keep in mind.

My software firewall has fended off several fragmentation attacks recently -- not e-mail related.  Fragmentation attacks are attempts to get around a router's hardware firewall, and into a local network.

Invest in a filter program like Mailwasher http://www.firetrust.com/
it wont catch everything automatically from the moment it's installed but with a bit of training it'll catch the worst offenders.

Personally I would never trust Outlook to do anything for me, it was one of the first programs I uninstalled when I updated to WinXP, & never ever leave the message pane open as this can activate virii & trojans without you actually doing anything.

soooo many scams, and i was innundated with scam merchants when i was selling my previous car, one scam merchant called me an idiot for not accepting their cold call (phone call).... i dont see an end to all this, its just a new way for criminals to steal money, we just have to be more vigilant.....
thanx for the headsup on this one

"Someone" gave your email address to some spammers.  Since it's targeted at artists, I wonder who that could have been.  (... this went on a couple of weeks ago the same way, with no evident investigation done by the probable offender)

Ya will allways get those email's as thier fun to read, and ya will allways get suckers who will send details to those people.
I have even chatted to some on phone and said how many you get and 1 said he got 100 bank details from people, and thier are ways of getting them to send you thier photos to cach them out.
1 bloke our side got these people to send thier photos to him was in our papers, and as i said to 1 bloke who was moaning let's be honest all the complaint's are about the fact that the africans came out with a sure fire winner scheme, that the whites didnt have the brain's to do.
Jusus tony blair and his goverment have allowed 200 foreign armed crime gangs into england, and 163 of them operate in london doing thier own stuff, that's why london has over taken johanasburg as the most dangerous city in the world.
Though to be honest as i say to people dont be in london during olympic's, because even the SAS will refuse to go into london.
I will leave you to work out what the greates political military figure on the planet today is going to do, and lot's of  scames come from england now, as the foreign gangs find it easier to operate from england.

**        deleted it while it was still in the preview pane.

**It's not a good idea to even have the preview pane on, even if images are no longer downloaded and code run automatically - View>Layout or similar and turn it off. 99% of spam can be indentified by the sender anema dn subject line without any further attention required.

Quote - For instance, right now, as I was reading this thread, this box popped
up all on its own, asking me if I want a software update that improves
the security of the software update process. 

This is probably genuine, but it looks and feels like spam, if only because
it's exactly the sort of thing that John Cleese and Eric Idle, the founders
of the spam metaphor, might have written!

This is legit.  You have iTunes/QuickTime installed - this is the software that Apple wants to update.  Google: Windows "Apple Software Update"

Quote - Invest in a filter program like Mailwasher http://www.firetrust.com/
it wont catch everything automatically from the moment it's installed but with a bit of training it'll catch the worst offenders.

Personally I would never trust Outlook to do anything for me, it was one of the first programs I uninstalled when I updated to WinXP, & never ever leave the message pane open as this can activate virii & trojans without you actually doing anything.

Outlook isn't the only program that I've got doing the e-mail filtering job for me.  I've got another.

But I have noted since upgrading to Outlook 2007 that it seems to be better at the task of e-mail filtering than previous versions.

Quote - [ This is legit.  You have iTunes/QuickTime installed - this is the software that Apple wants to update.  Google: Windows "Apple Software Update"

Thought it might've been... but wasn't anywhere near sure. Thx for the confirmation. /P