I go this email this afternoon. I wrote back and asked him to give me more company information. That was around 4pm EST, I havent heard back yet. Just wondering if you guys think this sounds like a scam. It's a little weird that it's coming from a yahoo account and his name only show up as Joseph. I took out part of the email address just in case it turns out not to be a scam but I'm skeptical.




To: Webmaster

From:
joseph
weedenxxxx@yahoo.com

Message:
Hi, I have a 43-page pdf document that I need to have either converted
into Word and formatted or re-typed into a Word document. I may have
future work, as well. What is your charge and turnaround time?

-Joe

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Paulette R.
Rhythm Virtual Solutions | Alpha & Beta Translations

Without a doubt, it is a scam, and this is why: 1. The e-mail was unsolicited; 2. The sender uses only a first name. 3. Your gut has already told you that it's a scam. The fact that you replied now gives this person/organization a valid e-mail address for you, from which they can determine where you live and, perhaps, other personal information about you. These types of scams send out thousands and thousands of e-mail "hooks," such as, "USPS Delivery Failure," "A Message from Robert S. Mueller, Director FBI," (both of which I have received), in addition to notices from various banks and credit unions. All they want is for the person to reply so that can try to get personal information and perhaps find a victim, upon whom they can perpetrate their scam.

The best policy is to never respond to e-mail messages from unknown senders. It's a dark world out there. I would ignore any further contact from these evil folks, and others like them. JM2C

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Collaborative Business Support

It's really hard to determine who is genuine and who isn't because at the end of the day, we all have websites advertising our businesses with our email addresses so it should be logical to receive email requests from people we don't know. In this case though, this person makes no reference to you personally, your business or if he even saw your website. I personally wouldn't reply to this one. How frustrating!

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Sabrina L. Williams
For a bird's eye view of your business

@Sabrina

That's one reason why I have a contact form on my site--not my email address. (Clients will get it, of course, or anyone who used the contact for that I choose to reply to.) So, if I get an email in my inbox, at least I know it's from a human who went through the trouble to fill out my form. Of course, they could still be a scammer, but it's an extra layer of security from automated scams.

This one is hard to say however I would be leery of the "To: Webmaster". If it were a PC you would think he would at least try to get your name.

If you responded and have heard nothing back then chalk it up to SPAM and move on. I would not spend any more time on this one since it is vague and impersonal.

I do have a contact form on my site however I have gotten messages via email from PC that did not want to fill out the form. So I would use your better judgement and go with your gut.

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Lee Drozak
My Office Assistant

lol I never fall for those stupid delivery service fail emails. Those are obviously fake especially considering that they don't email you if your package wasn't delivered. I remember at work one of the ladies clicked on some FedEx email that turned out to be a virus and the IT guy had to be called in.

I haven't heard back so I'll safely assume it's just a scam. Thanks ladies.

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Paulette R.
Rhythm Virtual Solutions | Alpha & Beta Translations

@ Lukeg
I was going to do that too but not everyone likes contact forms so I put my email on there as well. So far I haven't received much spam as the filters see to that but ocassionally I'll get a strange email pop up in my inbox.

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Sabrina L. Williams
For a bird's eye view of your business