Microsoft Prize Winner?

I've had three emails from Microsoft Admin 09 telling me I'm a winner in their competition & that they went through 5 million email IDs & I was a lucky winner, along with 49 others! Also tells me I've won UKStg450,000 & I can come "down" to the UK & personally collect it or I can have their cheque delivered by courier. Their claims department wants all my personal details before they can process my claim.

It's signed by Salvatore Murgiana, Promotions Co-ordinator.

Anybody else had these?

I've had quite a bit of this kind of stuff coming through since I changed to F Secure virus protection. Had PC Cillin last year & nothing like this ever came through.

They must think we're stupid!

yes, my boss had one of these, clicking on the link sent her computer into meltdown, nasty virus which pretty well destroyed everything- so glad it wasnt me!!!!

forward the emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and tell them to make the cheques out to C.Ash and post them to your P.O.Box

Thanks, everybody.

I've deleted them. I shall be phoning my computer supply shop & telling them & how things aren't that great with F Secure.

Wonder what the "F"stands for.. *useless maybe!!!!!!

Install Avast! instead. It's free and it seems to work.

For email I recommend Thunderbird, and set your sending and receiving options to plain text (not HTML).

Oh, and a healthy dose of scepticism goes a long way. Having said that, I have a bridge that you may be interested in buying...

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None of the above mentioned programs will protect you from Spam e-mails - in fact there is no 100% reliable means of filtering spam - if there was it would not exist. All that virus scanners like F Secure etc can do is protect you from known malicious attachments.

There has been a recent drop in spam levels but that wasnt due to clever software but clever people see
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154639/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws

Actually, Thunderbird has a spam detection feature built in, and it will learn how to categorise spam automatically over time.

Also, viewing your emails in plain-text mode removes many if the ways in which a spammer can trick you. No hidden URLs or web bugs for example.

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