Timely reminder - Internet Safety - please read.

We just had an instance of a person setting themselves as a member, for the sole reason it would seem of gathering people's home addresses/personal details. This person made no forum posts but sent the same message to 81 members with a "sob story" asking for the member to teach the requestor at the members home. Luckily the few that replied to the PM were cautious and did not give out their details. I hate to think what could have happened...

Thanks to the member who reported this as suspicious to us. The person has now been banned, but of course they could always re-appear under a different name.

Remember - do not give out your personal details to strangers. We did not set this site up for our members to be put in danger:
http://www.homeofpoi.com/articles/InternetSafety.php

regards
George

Thank you George. I completely agree.

And along these lines (because I dealt with this yesterday) please also don't post your personal information on the bb either.
I know many of you are friends but we do have alot of lurkers and can not honestly vouche for anyone.

Besides, I'm not sure any of you would really want my psycho self calling ya up!

Be safe and take care all.

I hope you looked up the IP they were posting from, and sent a message to abuse@their.isp.

i had a really random email today that such a hoax..........i'm debating on replying just to wind them up and lead them on. it's nice to know the HoP mods are looking out for us






*and not banning me

lol, who wants my pin number?! Apparently according to this e-mail ive just gotten there is a starving minority group child who would grately benifit from it, oh lets give Maddonna a call

Today: a chinese teacher asked me to look at an e-mail saying he would recieve 10 million dollars, if he sent his details to freelotto or somesuch

teacher 'is this a scam then'
me 'well lets see: did you buy a ticket?'
teacher 'no'
me 'well then, let me introduce a new english saying to you, 'if it looks to good to be true, then it usually is'.'

OMG thank you

Thanks bro, u shouldnt give u details to anyone on the net, even if u consider him your friend (and never met him)
the internet is full o' psychos.... and thats a shame, because the is becoming the real world 8-]

Yeah, totally - thank you. I've been lucky enough to be excluded and haven't had one of this nasty b*****'s E-mails, but I'll be sure to keep an eye out in case he manages to slip thru again. Not that I'd give out my details to a stranger in the first place of course.

Hah... i love how the Fraudy McArseholes get themselves into just about every website it seems.

I work for a large bank here in the U.S.A. and I run the Online Fraud Prevention Team. Basically i deal with all aspects of people getting into your account through any means that touches the internet in any way. The BIGGEST thing we see is customers getting phishing e-mails and giving up their User ID and Password or their personal info such as SSN#s or account numbers etc etc etc.

It never fails to amaze me at how many supposedly smart people are caught by these scams every single day. Those of you not directly involved with the business would be astounded at the shear numbers that just my bank deals with each day, i can only begin to imagine the overall number of people scammed in this manner across the world.

I tell everyone i talk to constantly: No reputable person nor company will EVER ask you for anything NOR ever give you anything NOR ever owe you anything through an internet medium, ESPECIALLY without a significant prior history of association with you. You did not win the lottery (especially not in another country for goodness sake) you do not have dead relatives who left you money, you do not need to verify your information with your bank or creditors (trust me they ALL already HAVE that info, it's their job), a company does not need you to act as their financial manager and receive checks from individuals only to turn and wire the money to another country (how he heck do people fall for that? seriously... all day long i hear this...) and you DEFINITELY did not just meet an extremely attractive foreigner who needs help (read money) to get out of whatever country or situation they are in. You are not at all special in any kind of way to them, its JUST a scam.

Oh and one more thing, if someone sends you any form of corespondance and you don't know them personally AND they have HORRIBLE grammer... guess what, ITS A SCAM. Fact #1 Nigerian scammers CAN'T SPELL! (no offense to any legitimate Nigerian citizens who aren't scamming others intended)

step #1 install email program (not going to use anything by MS)

step #2 put the name of your bank into your email filters.

about the nigerian scammers

if you ever get bored, this is fun to look in to
www.419eater.com
they have some great stories =D scamming the scammers. win!