Important Announcement. Please Read

[Emerald Midi]

Mar 12, 2009 11:58:05 GMT shyamwestwind said:

Hi Everyone
THIS IS VERY VERY URGENT AND IMPORTANT
GlennH sent me a message from an e-mail address [e-mail] I opened it unwittingly to a window asking me to click on an icon of an envelope with a note saying “Please read it or Glenn will think you ignored this”
I was asked to open the message through gmail (my email address) and nothing happened . I received no message , but after a few minutes I got mail saying that my friends in my address book had accepted my invitation to join this “fanic.com” or whatever.
PLEASE DO NOT OPEN ANY SUCH MAIL FROM ANYONE AS IT MIGHT GET INTO YOUR ADDRESS BOOK AND SEND NONEXISTENT MESSAGES TO YOUR FRIENDS
I hope this is not Glenn’s idea of a prank .Quite a few of us have been hoping to get some response from Glenn and this was obviously used by whomsoever to send this “worm” across.
John (Steptoe) had sent a link in the Forum for anyone desiring to contact Glenn. I had clicked on that and all this started happening. (John, please do remove that link if you can )
PLEASE BE CAREFUL.I am in a fix here trying to stop this from spreading and I wonder how

Thank you Shyam for this warning.

I have removed John's (Steptoe's) post with those contact details until we ascertain if that is the reason or not that you were tricked in this way.

In the meantime I urge all members to read your comments carefully and act accordingly.

Thanks again, Shyam for letting us know.

[Tone_Deff (Musicmaker)]

Hi Shyam,

Yup !! - Thanks for the warning. I have had one from you !!

This is just a Marketing tool 'worm' that gets into your Email addresses, and advertises some product or other. A very unethical way of touting for business.

This once happened to me from a firm in Hong Kong selling electrical goods - everyone on my Email list (and I have about 100 contacts), got it, supposedly from me - and were in some cases really angry with me, as though I had done it !!

If you get this Email - as Shyam says - DO NOT open it, but certainly hit the 'unsubscribe' at the bottom.

This is a Fan Site for Sports in America called 'FanIQ'

'This message has been forwarded at the request of [e-mail]. To block all emails from FanIQ, please click here. FanIQ is located at 604 mission St, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA.'

Thanks for the warning, Shyam !! I think that everyone on your 'contacts' list will get one of these, whatever Email client you use

John

[Steptoe]

I also received an email, but allegedly from Shyam which I know now that it wasn't. I also deleted it.

[jacqui01]

Yes I got it too, but thought it was suspicious, so emailed Shyam direct to ask him, then he informed me of what was going on, lucky I never opened it.

Jacqui

[JazzCat]

I also had one from Shyam, and very well could have had one from Glenn as well. I never join things that 'friends' send. I simply delete the messages and I do not respond to them. On occasion I will write to that friend and ask if they did indeed send me something. If they say yes, I tell them I don't join that stuff and why I don't.

!!!! VERY IMPORTRANT !!!!
Do NOT EVER hit an unsubscribe button or link! All that does is confirm you 'exist' and that can, and often, takes you to a page that downloads all kinds of nasties to your computer!

As a matter of fact, you can get nasties just from reading your mail in HTML format!. If you use Outlook Express as your mail client the best way to fix that is to set your preferences to read everything in text format. Then the HTML comes as an attachment that you do not have to open, if you chose not to.

To change those settings:

Tools ( from the top menu bar)
Options
Read tab
check the box next to: 'Read all messages as plain text'
click 'Apply' then 'OK'

You can always change it back any time you want to see a particular e-mail in full HTML format.

[cptkay0s]

Very good advice Jazz

Warren

[shyamwestwind]

Hi guys,
I did the most foolish thing ever and you will wonder if I'm educated or not !!!!! I got so paranoid about this FanIQ stuff, I DELETED ALL MY CONTACT from my gmail account and , changed my password. I should have sent mai to all my contact warning them not to open that scoundrel message, but like a fool, I just deleted the whole lot !!!!!!! GOSH, i REALLY WAS UPSET and I think I over recacted.
I dont use Outlook Express too.
Sob sob sob

[Emerald Midi]

Don't worry Shyam, the message generated seemingly from your initial actions was not dangerous but apparently an advertisers scam of getting their message across to as many as possible. So, apart from some junk mail it seems to be "friendly" enough. It could, of course, be worse and one of those serious things that can happen.

I urge everyone to read and re-read Cat's advise (a few posts above) on this. This lady knows her onions when it comes to surfing the net safely

[shyamwestwind]

JAZZCAT, I mainly use gmail .... is there any way I can read all messages as plain text in gmail ? I am still upset about what happened and I am angry at the way it whizzed through my address book and the address books of others. As Pat said, is not dangerous but well I should be prepared for the nasty ones .. I wonder what pleasure these sickos get from doing this ?

[rosybud1956]

I also got the email but at the time I thought it was a little odd so didn't open the envelope. It has now been deleted. Thanks for the warning, Lyn