Monday, January 9, 2012

You've Been Warned

Earlier today, I received this email, from my mother, addressed to me, my sister, and my Uncle (her brother).  


"Good morning, just wanted to let you know that someone at my job's Facebook account was hacked into. The person was sending emails to her Facebook friends and saying they had won some money and all they had to do was send money for the taxes and they would get the money they won. Also there was another person's account at my job whose account was hacked into, and so they sent out some pictures of them to their friends and some spam email. So the bottom line is be careful of what is on your account and email, and check out things first that come your way. Tiffanie please let grandson know about this also, and anyone else you want to inform.


Love ya!"


Now, tell me you didn't smile and or laugh and or shake your head when you read this.  It's not possible, at least it wasn't for me.  My morning's start was craptastical, so imagine the instant joy I felt working its way through my mouse finger to turning my frown upside down.  This sweet, naive, gem did that.  I think I read it about 3 times, before I picked up the phone to call my mom.  That conversation went a little something like this:
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Hi mommy!  I got your email.  


You did?  Okay, I'm glad.  I wasn't sure if it sent.  Well, anyway ain't that something?  


What?


That somebody hacked into my co-worker's account and asked for money.  You have to be careful.


I'm confused.


They hacked into her account and sent emails to a lot of people saying that they had won some money and all they had to do was pay for the taxes on the money and then they would get the winnings.  So she went all the way down to some place and wired the money.  When my other co-worker got in today she asked her if she got the money she sent her over the weekend.  She was like "I don't know what you're talking about."  Well they figured it out that it was spam and she went back to the email to show her.  It's crazy. You can't trust people and you have to be careful.  I'm just saying that you double check things or pick up the phone and ask and confirm before you do something.  Well, I know you wouldn't do that, but I wanted to spread it, just in case.  Oh, and the other one said someone broke into his account and sent very graphic types of pictures to his FaceBook friends and put it on their sites and stuff.  


Oh wow, okay.  I get spam emails all of the time and I just ignore them.  


Good!
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We swapped a few more comments about how silly and unfortunate it was that her co-worker lost money, that she didn't really have.  Desperate times calls for desperate measures, huh? I absolutely loved this exchange, because it was so sincere.