Demand for BitCoin payment re "hacked" account

General_Grant

I've been receiving a series of emails supposedly sent from my own accounts, that is showing the same address as sender and receiver.

It is fairly standard - they've had access to my computer for months and have observed the !!!!!! sites I have visited and will email my friends and colleagues if I don't pay up.

I know these are scams (not least because I don't watch online videos!) but how can I stop them (they are coming to at least three accounts)?

If I report them as spam via my PlusNet online webmail, could that lead to my domain being blocked generally so that I myself can't send emails?

It is so annoying - will they eventually give up, do you think?

tonyh66

been getting the same emails for weeks/months also with Plusnet, I just delete them or mark them as spam.

Mr_Singleton

General_Grant wrote: »

and have observed the !!!!!! sites I have visited

I know these are scams (not least because I don't watch online videos!)

For the record I’d like to say I completely and totally believe you!

JJ_Egan

VIEW
Message Source

Block the actual senders address .
See multiple identical posts .

forgotmyname

Don't stop them, reply begging them to not tell your family and colleagues.

You will pay anything they ask, you are a (enter religious leader of choice) and this must never leak out...

I might be temped to accidently slip in the initials of someone famous in the email

Let them think they have a live one.

unrecordings

My email provider allows me to block key phrases, so rather than block on an individual basis, I can scour the occasional ones that get through for a good chunk of text or keyword that would never crop up in a normal email. Of course some of them are a little ahead of the game and the text appears in image format - In which case JJ's approach is the best (see post 4)

stragglebod

Use a decent email client that marks them as junk automatically so you never even get to see them.

Carrot007

tonyh66 wrote: »

been getting the same emails for weeks/months also with Plusnet, I just delete them or mark them as spam.

Hmm, you know I have never once looked at my plusnet email account after being with them for four (nearly) years.


I see around 2 of them a day in gmail to various accounts though.


The better ones actually tell you your password when it was from some leaked site that was so bad that it stored the actual passwords!


And TBH even if it were true, go ahead no one cares.

ciderboy2009

forgotmyname wrote: »

Don't stop them, reply begging them to not tell your family and colleagues.

You will pay anything they ask, you are a (enter religious leader of choice) and this must never leak out...

I might be temped to accidently slip in the initials of someone famous in the email

Let them think they have a live one.

With these emails the reply you send will just come straight to you (the scammers set the "reply to" address to yours as part of the "proof" that they've hacked your account)


If you ever do reply to a scammers email then always do so from a disposable email account and not your actual one.

If you're going to scambait then always do it safely and make sure that there's absolutely no way the scammer can identify you.