Spam, spam, spam, spam!

It's amazing just how much money I turn down each day. There must be simply hundreds of dead multi-millionaires who's legal team desparately need my account details to help get the funds out of Africa. Not to mention all the companies needing a tax free way to get their money out of Iraq (also needing my bank details), and all these email lottery wins that I keep turning down too. This week alone I must have passed up on a small fortune.

This is because A) if the UK National Lottery were running any email schemes I'd assume that they would be able to spell, and B) If I haven't entered a competition / lottery then I don't expect to win it.

Alongside these scams are other ones wanting my bank details for my accounts (with banks that I don't bank with). Most of these scams are obvious fakes, some are less so. Today's was a new one on me, and was (allegedly) from Microsoft:

Reset your Windows Live password

From: Microsoft Customer Support
To: myaddress@hotmail.com
Date: Yesterday 4:48:55 pm


Hello, myaddress@hotmail.com:

We received your request to reset your Windows Live password. To confirm your request and reset your password, follow the instructions below. Confirming your request helps prevent unauthorized access to your account.

If you didn't request that your password be reset, please follow the instructions below to cancel your request.

This is followed by instructions for accepting or cancelling the request. Except that it probably isn't.

If you get a mail like this and you haven't requested a password reset - DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FOLLOW ANY OF THE LINKS.

Just delete the email (and any repeat arrivals of it). Your password is perfectly safe, but if you are really worried then log into Windows Live and manually change your password (but not by any of the links in that email).