PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Scam email !

ctamara — Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:53 am

Author: ctamara

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:53 am

Has anyone received a letter or letters from the archives in certain areas of Poland offering their assistance in searching for their relatives and including how much they charge? I did not contact them personally so wonder how they found me. Zenon mentioned it seemed like a template, however, no one else I know got one. Carol Tamara

Re: Scam email !

Zenon — Mon Feb 23, 2015 3:15 pm

Author: Zenon

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 3:15 pm

We check Forum just before the notifications are sent every evening, but yesterday (Sunday) evening we didn't. Thank you for your advice.

May them stay away

Re: Scam email !

BobK — Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:06 am

Author: BobK

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:06 am

Zenon, I'd offer to help -- IF you really needed it.. But - I don't think you need to have others watching for scammers.
Giving out moderator rights lightly .. well.. I follow many forums, and it's a very rare sight.. more often someone being impolite..

Turn off the notifications for the hours you can't monitor new posts

May the idiots stay away from Polish Origins!!
Bob

Re: Scam email !

Zenon — Mon Feb 23, 2015 2:22 am

Author: Zenon

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 2:22 am

Dear All,

We monitor our Forum regularly but the last Sunday there appeared spammer who posted messages offering, among others, Fake Passports. The spammer registered and sent his commercials on late Sunday evening (Polish time). It means that we already were in our beds and didn't notice it.

The messages as well as their author from Cameroon has already been banned permanently removed.

We apologize everyone for this accident, especially those of you who might felt concerned. We also thank all of you who reacted and send us emails about the spammer. Unfortunately we couldn't read until Monday morning and the fake messages were on-line, as well as in your email inboxes, before we reacted.

As you know, our core Team is located in Europe and we cannot monitor Forum during the night (Polish time) which is between 5.00 PM and 12.00 AM (midnight) EST (UTC -5:00 hours).

If only any of you would be willing to help us to prevent this kind of unpleasant accidents in the future we could grant you moderator rights, including removing spam messages, to help us in monitoring our Forum round the clock.

Thank you for your understanding.

Re: Scam email !

Zenon — Sun Oct 27, 2013 11:52 pm

Author: Zenon

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 11:52 pm

As hundreds of others who try to spam in our Forum this one was also banned and removed. Usually we react much faster to this kind of messages but this time the spam post was submitted on Sunday evening Polish time.

Thank you for your reaction Bob and Dave.

(This post is response to "fresh" spam in Forum from October 27, 2013, not to the scam private messages by which some of you were affected in 2010).

Re: Scam email !

dnowicki — Sun Oct 27, 2013 5:44 pm

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 5:44 pm

Bob,

Based on the profile of the author of the post it seems that the author joined Polish Origins only in order to have a place to post this type of junk. Too bad the author found this site.

Dave

Re: Scam email !

BobK — Sun Oct 27, 2013 4:27 pm

Author: BobK

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 4:27 pm

How'd this SPAM get onto this site??

Re: Scam email !

Zenon — Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:53 am

Author: Zenon

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:53 am

This user is already removed from the users list and banned.

Currently I am in the middle of the "high season" traveling with my guests throughout Poland in search of their roots and relatives (see our offer: http://tours.polishorigins.com) and although I check our website at least once a day this is sometimes too rarely to trace all the issues, also these related to scam or spam.

Thank you all again for letting me know about the issue.

Scam Email - Madam Avelin Regato

woody71 — Mon Aug 02, 2010 4:54 pm

Author: woody71

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 4:54 pm

Hi I only joined this site last night and first thing this morning I recieved this private message:

From: madamavelin
To: woody71
Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:16 am
Subject: My Dear Beloved one, Quote message
My Dear Beloved one,

Nice to meet you, how is everything, hope all is well with you,My name is Madam Avelin Regato,i am a citizen of philipine and a widow to mr.Desmond Regato.

I found your contact after reading your profile I picked interest to contact you.

I've something very important which I would love to share with you privately, therefore,
would advise you to kindly write me back on( madamavelinregato@hotmail.com) so that I'll give you details,

Waiting anxiously for your anticipated corporation,

Yours,

Madam Avelin Regato,

This is obviously a SCAM and I deleted the email straight away, but I wanted to bring it to the attention of everyone.
And I hope the person is banished from this site.

Re: Scam email !

Dian — Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:56 pm

Author: Dian

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:56 pm

The person must still be at it, because I just received a SPAM through this website. It was supposedly from Polish Origins. I too, thought it might finally be someone researching my family. I did open the message, but did not reply. Is there a provision on this website to do away with SPAM?
thanks, Dian

Re: Scam email !

violin75 — Fri Jul 23, 2010 6:24 pm

Author: violin75

Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 6:24 pm

Thanks Zenon!

Re: Scam email !

Cheryl — Fri Jul 23, 2010 6:13 pm

Author: Cheryl

Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 6:13 pm

I received an email from this Susan Edwards into my new email screen name, so she didn't learn her lesson. This was about a week after she first appeared in this site.
I sent it to SPAM right away...will not hesitate to ditch the new screen name if I receive any more unwanted emails.

Re: Scam email !

Zenon — Fri Jul 23, 2010 6:00 am

Author: Zenon

Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 6:00 am

violin75 wrote:

Question: Is it safe to leave my information of my family on my profile? I deleted my name, which I am worried about but what about the family information? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Once again, thank you
Brandy

Brandy,

I think that as long as you do not reveal any sensitive information like your passport, credit card or your current family details (address etc.) you should be safe. For example, the information your posted on your personal page http://polishorigins.com/violin75 refers to the past and I don't think anyone would be able to do you any harm using it. What of course doesn't relieve anyone to be careful, especially while sending e-mails to unknown persons.

Again, I encourage everyone not to reveal your e-mail addresses anywhere in the Forum posts (this one or in any other). You can communicate with other members of our community via private messages. You don't have to use your e-mail address to send and receive messages.

Re: Scam email !

violin75 — Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:41 pm

Author: violin75

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:41 pm

Zenon and the Polish Origins team:
I want to personally thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking such quick action. I received this message and responded to Sussan thinking she had something wonderful to tell me. After I received it, I was really upset because I couldn't believe people would go onto a genealogy site and prey on people searching for their family! I have not responded back but she did get my email address.

Question: Is it safe to leave my information of my family on my profile? I deleted my name, which I am worried about but what about the family information? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Once again, thank you
Brandy

Re: Scam email !

Zenon — Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:40 pm

Author: Zenon

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:40 pm

Retta,

The recent message you received about adding your e-mail to a new group called 'subscribed' was generated by me. I just added new users to the mailing group to send all registered members warning about the recent scam we are discussing about here. Your e-mail wasn't and will not be revealed by us, PolishOrigins Team, to anyone. We always remind our members to communicate with others via private messages and not revealing your e-mail accounts to anyone. See our Terms of Use: http://polishorigins.com/document/terms and Privacy Policy: http://polishorigins.com/document/privacy .

Susan Edward

RettaT — Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:23 pm

Author: RettaT

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:23 pm

After reveiving this scam notice from Susan Edward, I am very concerned over this due to the fact a new email was generated to my email address saying I have been added to a new group. I have not been on this site in ages and am very concerned of identify theft. How Susan was able to obtain information on me from this site is very disturbing to me and I have notified the Attorney General - State of CT on this scam as well.

Re: Scam email !

Cheryl — Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:08 pm

Author: Cheryl

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:08 pm

I actually created a newscreen name for her "to reply to"....nothing. It just didn't feel right. I have no other contacts in this new account so no "harvesting" to be found.

What a shame that someone would be this devious and hurtful.

Re: Scam email !

Marmia — Tue Jul 13, 2010 2:25 pm

Author: Marmia

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 2:25 pm

I also received an email from Sussan Edward, if this is the same as the Susan you mentioned

Re: Scam email !

tarkulich — Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:55 pm

Author: tarkulich

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:55 pm

I got the letter too. But I get enough of this junk to ignore it and to report it. On another forum, we had one spammer post and accused it of such, but a long time user vouched for the letter - It was a raffle solicitation for a benefit, where the prize is, a totally restored Skoda auto. Really, no kidding! What a surprise.

Shortly after I updated my profile last weekend, I received several pieces of spam that my spam-junk filters did not catch. It went to my private email account. I made sure the settings on the forum conceal my real private email address . But I still can't help but wonder if this spammer has harvested our information once "behind the curtain".
Not asking you to do anything, just an observation unless others have seen the same.

The problem is, that if you replied to sussan's email, you may have inadvertently revealed your private email address to the spammer.

Re: Scam email !

bakers — Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:32 pm

Author: bakers

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:32 pm

I to would like to thank Zenon for putting an end to this scam mail from "susan"

Bakers