Hi Cheri, I have won a couple of times too. I will share half of my win if you will share of yours. Have a great day and stop thinking of ways to get of work. Back to the real word. Seriously, the first one I received I believed it to be true. They refer you to a lottery site and all looks so offical. What do you think they are after? They never asked me for any money.

Hi, Mary You asked a very good question, and I have only my opinion for an answer, but I've seen it happen with my sister-in-law. I think they are trying to lull you into a false sense of security, so that later, when they DO ask you for money, it will seem perfectly natural to you. They're getting smarter as we get more sophisticated. They know now that if they ask for money up front, they won't get your attention. But after a period of correspondence where they would have endeavored to build your trust, they would have asked for it, or asked for some personal information to 'verify' you are the 'real winner'. I'd bet on it. My sister-in-law was duped into believing that she had become engaged to a man from...you guessed it...Nigeria, after a computer 'romance'. Then she got a message from his 'sons' that he had died, leaving her his fortune. She was about to give them various pieces of personal information when we persuaded her to drop the correspondence. She's heartbroken that she abandoned those boys before she could return their father's fortune to them (which of course she didn't get in the first place). She still mourns her lost 'love'. By the way, this plot unfolded over a period of a year. Never think they aren't patient! People that do this to innocents like her are sick. Cheri

Hi, Arild, thanks for your post. I don't know how your email works, but it does no good for me to block email addresses in mine. The same threats come from so many different ones that I'm soon at my limit. But on a lighter note, while we're talking about phishing and other types of scam, how about those hoaxes? Now these aren't benign...they feed the fears of people who fear too much already, they waste bandwidth and they waste everyone's time. So I was very annoyed with my daughter for sending me this one, until I read a little further along. By the time I was at the bottom, I was laughing hysterically. I hope you'll all get a laugh out of it, too: ================================================= WARNING!!!! If you receive an email entitled "Bedtimes" delete it IMMEDIATELY. Do not open it. Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards. It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR, and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play. It will program your phone auto dial to call only 1-900 numbers. This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. IT WILL CAUSE YOUR TOILET TO FLUSH WHILE YOU ARE SHOWERING. It will drink ALL your beer. FOR GOD'S SAKE, ARE YOU LISTENING?? It will leave dirty underwear on the coffee table when you are expecting company. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine. If the "Bedtimes" message is opened in a Windows 95/98 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk and your whole milk with soy milk. ***WARN AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN. *** And if you don't send this to 5000 people in 20 seconds, you'll fart so hard that your right leg will spasm and shoot straight out in front of you, sending sparks that will ignite the person nearest you. Send this warning to everyone!!! THERE'S A LOT OF SADNESS IN THE WORLD! Right now, as you read this, 17 Million people are having S*X!!! And look at you - you're on the bl**dy computer!!!! Now take a deep breath, wipe the tears from your eyes, and let everyone you care about know of the dreaded "Bedtimes" virus. ================================================= Get off the computer and go do something outside--it's spring! (With apologies to my friends from down under.) Cheri

Hi Cheri, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Get off the computer and go do something outside--it's spring! (With apologies to my friends from down under.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just taking a minute to go through all your forums I didn't look at before. Mainly because they didn't apply. Outside! That is where I am constantly from morning to evening. We have had mostly good weather here and has given me the chance to get plenty of outside work done. It is frosty this morning and I will be heading to church later so am taking a free minute to say hi. That "WARNING" was a good laugh. If it had come through my regular email, I would have deleted it without even looking at it as I have been programed to quickly use the delete key with all this garbage that comes in. Martha

Hi, Martha How very nice to see you! I certainly understand why we haven't lately, though. Yesterday I planted marigolds in the top of the planter that has tomatoes hanging below it. Took care of some weeds that looked like giant dandelions, planted trailing petunias in a hanging basket and just enjoyed every minute of it. Today I'll tackle the rest of the weeds. One of these days I'm going to learn to put my gardens to bed properly so that the weeds don't have a head start by the time it's warm enough for pleasant gardening. I usually delete things like this, too, but ever since I sent one back to my daughter with hoax information, she has sent me everything she gets so that I can research it for her. She gets them at work, and they don't have the internet available to do the checking herself. When I send them back to her, she forwards it to whoever sent her the message. I have a client who does the same thing to educate people who send her junk like this. It's like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a thimble, though. Cheri