Here's another mail that hit my spam folder. At first, it looked real; it had the official WindowsLive logo and since my Hotmail acct. had been hacked several months ago, it alarmed me. After looking at the body of the message, I knew it was a phishing attempt.
Dear ,
We have recently detected an unusual activity on your account .
WindowsLive has placed a hold on your e-mail account untill this issue will be resolved.
To ensure that your e-mail service is not interupted, please confirm your information with us, by following the link below :
(URL deleted)
We are sorry for any inconvenience that this might have caused.
© WindowsLive 2012
WindowsLive is working 24/7 to ensure the protection of your account.
This e-mail may contain confidential and/or priviliged information. In case you are not the intented recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified not to read , distribute , disclose or otherwise use this transmision. If you have received this e-mail in error , please notify the sender immediately and then delete this e-mail/transmission from your system
I deleted the URL, but it wasn't a valid one, anyway - it was masked. Hovering over it with the cursor, I saw a different URL, one that went to a PHP page on imenasa.com.
Not sure why anyone would want to get into my Hotmail account; I never use it for online financial transactions. In fact, it's the address I give when I have to give an email addy for free samples or when I don't believe the site when they say they will keep my information private. I checked the account the other day after not signing in for a couple of months and there were a half dozen newsletters I had never bothered to cancel when I pretty much quit using Hotmail and went to Gmail and there were over a thousand mails in the spam folder.
I should have noticed it was a phishing attempt from the get-go, as the reply to address was Hotmail Team services@hotmel.co.uk
Hotmel?
That reminded me of someone I used to know, a guy named Mel who was a derrick hand on a drilling rig I worked on a long time ago. Mel was anti-social and didn't like the other hands visiting with him in the mud house .(where the derrick hand mixed the drilling mud/fluid) That was OK; it was during the summer and the nights were hot, so there was no need to get in out of the cold like there was during the winter. I can't remember the details, but I didn't work too long on that rig.
It was several months later and I was behind a rather large and hairy woman in line at a neighborhood convenience store. She was dressed fairly nice - a white blouse with blue trim and a short white skirt and was wearing nylons. As "she" turned around, I saw that it was Mel! Trying my best to remain nonchalant, I spoke with him a little bit, reminded him that we had worked together on the rig. He was a lot more cordial than he had been on that job. He asked what I was doing now, I asked the same and that was about it. He said goodbye and walked out the door, a little rocky on his high heels.
I turned to pay for my items and the clerk was staring at me, her mouth wide open. "You know that guy?" she asked with an incredulous look on her face. "Yeah." I told her. "We roughnecked together on a drilling rig.".
She shook her head in disbelief. "Can you believe the way he was dressed?"
"Disgraceful." I told her and she nodded in agreement, still looking astonished. I went on:
"Wearing white after Labor Day. Disgraceful."
Yup, Mel looked pretty hot from the back until you noticed the matted hair under his stockings. When he turned around, it was another story.
Edit to add: I am Facebook friends with a local woman. Looking through her friends list, I noticed Mel was her friend. I messaged her and asked if he still liked to "dress up". She wrote back, saying she had heard he had done that, but she never had seen him cross-dressing. She said he was a devout Christian now.
