Potential Scams Just Keep Coming

As a practicing attorney and Internet volunteer, I also respond to questions asked on several Internet sites. where people who have questions in my areas of practice leave them for a response.

This week I received two emails from ostensibly different people, thanking me for being so responsive and caring. Interestingly, the contents of these letters were almost identical. They appealed to me to write to the sender, befriend them, and requested I tell them all about my personal and family life, including educational details and other personal information.

Both emails came from areas of the world where Internet scams and identity theft attemps abound. I suspect these were the first attempts at soliciting my interest and then using this interest to either induce me to provide more personal information that could enhance the possibility of identity theft, or attempting to make me a victim of some scam.

Bottom line: If you receive an email from a stranger, no matter how friendly it might appear, or how appealing to you it seems, it pays to be cautious and reveal no personal information that could be used to further an improper purpose. Better to be safe than sorry, and to avoid becoming a victim.