A scam of some sort

PCUser · Feb 28, 2026

Patsy1011 said:
The message contains the following:
Here's what I ha ve:
Your complete pe rsonal info rmat ion: full name, date of birth, home addre ss.
Your social security number and dr iver's li cense detail s.
All your email account login creden tials, inclu ding this accoun t.
Other login details and your private mes sag es.
A mul titude of files found on your devic es.
Ac cess to your bank accoun ts.
The det ails of your credit cards: num ber, expiry date, and cvv .

I have compiled this en tire package into a single fo lder. I can and intend to do two things with it. It is up to you to decide which one:

I will send this entire pa ckage to darknet markets, where other criminals will buy it.
It is unknown how they will use this inf orm ation. They may purchase someth ing illegal in your na me, or they may not, but you will def initely not like it.

Or you can buy it from me for a small fee of 600 usd.

Pretty thorough. I will follow your instructions if you think this is real. Thanks.

I think it's a BLUFF. It's a fishing SCAM. Sending MANY out to see who bites, and pays thinking it's real.

Notice that they didn't address you personally by full name or confirm ANY of the detailed information.

This is a lazy scam, shotgun emailed to thousands hoping for 1 or 2 responses.

I've received this same email before (not spoof sent by my own email address), and it's BS. I delete them.

These are TRULY LAZY SCAMS. Do thorough malware scans to cleanup your PC.

Programs like "SuperAntiSpyware" and also Safer Networking's "Spybot Search & Destroy" are also good. I install them both on every PC I work on.
ZERO PROBLEMS for 20 years. Spybot Search & Destroy has a great bad domain blocking feature to safe guard you. It creates loopbacks in the Windows hosts file so bad stuff from domains on the bad list can't come in or go out. I'm trying to word this as simple as possible in case your not an IT person -which I suspect.

Good luck - don't be afraid
P.S. My desktop has no camera, and my laptop camera is not enabled in device manager.

antspants · Feb 28, 2026

Patsy1011 said:
That should prevent future nonsense such as this -- right??

Hi Patsy.

That is not necessarily correct.
Personally, emails like these don’t bother me. It isn’t uncommon.

It’s called email spoofing:

It does not mean your email account was hacked.
It does not mean someone has your password.
It does not give them access to your inbox.

Spoofing only fakes the sender label, not the account.

The real email address is found in the email headers. Depending on your email client, you can look through the header and find the original source, block it manually.

I would suggest that you signed up somewhere that was later compromised.
You can check from where, putting your email address in the form below will show you from where the compromise happened.
If it lists anything, just to be safe, log into the site that was compromised and change your password.

Most commonly, it’s the email addresses only that are stolen. It’s all just fishing.

Enter your email here:

Have I Been Pwned: Check if your email address has been exposed in a data breach

Have I Been Pwned allows you to check whether your email address has been exposed in a data breach.

haveibeenpwned.com

Patsy1011 · Feb 28, 2026

I shall address these posts tomorrow -- much to ponder. Thank you.

antspants · Feb 28, 2026

Patsy1011 said:
I shall address these posts tomorrow -- much to ponder. Thank you.

Just don’t let any alarmists posts freak you out.

Patsy1011 · Mar 1, 2026

PCUser said:
I think it's a BLUFF. It's a fishing SCAM. Sending MANY out to see who bites, and pays thinking it's real.

Notice that they didn't address you personally by full name or confirm ANY of the detailed information.

This is a lazy scam, shotgun emailed to thousands hoping for 1 or 2 responses.

I've received this same email before (not spoof sent by my own email address), and it's BS. I delete them.

These are TRULY LAZY SCAMS. Do thorough malware scans to cleanup your PC.

Programs like "SuperAntiSpyware" and also Safer Networking's "Spybot Search & Destroy" are also good. I install them both on every PC I work on.
ZERO PROBLEMS for 20 years. Spybot Search & Destroy has a great bad domain blocking feature to safe guard you. It creates loopbacks in the Windows hosts file so bad stuff from domains on the bad list can't come in or go out. I'm trying to word this as simple as possible in case your not an IT person -which I suspect.

Good luck - don't be afraid
P.S. My desktop has no camera, and my laptop camera is not enabled in device manager.

Thanks for all that info. Absolutely correct - NOT an IT person. My question is - if all of this type of scam stuff gets into your email program, doesn't just a password change fix -- at least -- that one?
I did that late yesterday and as of this morning nothing from that sender has shown up. I am thinking all is ok again.

Patsy1011 · Mar 1, 2026

antspants said:
Hi Patsy.

That is not necessarily correct.
Personally, emails like these don’t bother me. It isn’t uncommon.

It’s called email spoofing:

It does not mean your email account was hacked.

It does not mean someone has your password.

It does not give them access to your inbox.

Spoofing only fakes the sender label, not the account.

The real email address is found in the email headers. Depending on your email client, you can look through the header and find the original source, block it manually.

I would suggest that you signed up somewhere that was later compromised.
You can check from where, putting your email address in the form below will show you from where the compromise happened.
If it lists anything, just to be safe, log into the site that was compromised and change your password.

Most commonly, it’s the email addresses only that are stolen. It’s all just fishing.

Enter your email here:

Have I Been Pwned: Check if your email address has been exposed in a data breach

Have I Been Pwned allows you to check whether your email address has been exposed in a data breach.

haveibeenpwned.com

Hi -- well it freaked me out. Not usually seeing this sort of thing is very alarming. I did what you suggested and 11 breaches came up. The two sites where I have accounts with the compromised password have been changed. I also signed up for notification if a breach occurs -- guess that and changing my password should resolve the issue. Thanks again for all of your concise help.

gunrunnerjohn · Mar 1, 2026

Patsy1011 said:
Thanks for all that info. Absolutely correct - NOT an IT person. My question is - if all of this type of scam stuff gets into your email program, doesn't just a password change fix -- at least -- that one?
I did that late yesterday and as of this morning nothing from that sender has shown up. I am thinking all is ok again.

Actually, your email password has nothing to do with it. All a person needs to send you email is your email address. Changing your password is never a bad idea, but it didn't do anything about this kind of email.

Patsy1011 · Mar 1, 2026

Oh ratz...so since this group has my email address, it may show up again. It sounds like most of you pro's just delete it as it is fishing or scamming or just plain annoying but not a true threat...correct? I should just delete it again if it shows up -- correct?

gunrunnerjohn · Mar 1, 2026

Patsy1011 said:
Oh ratz...so since this group has my email address, it may show up again. It sounds like most of you pro's just delete it as it is fishing or scamming or just plain annoying but not a true threat...correct? I should just delete it again if it shows up -- correct?

Yep! If it shows up again, or a similar one, that's an indication that they really don't have anything and are just seeing if you'll panic with a couple of prods. I see these pretty regularly, and I also see a bunch of them that get intercepted by my SPAM filters. Oddly, my stuff has never been sold, and I've never paid them a dime. I've also never answered or attempted to unsubscribe.

Any response just tells them they have a live one!

jvickers · Mar 1, 2026

I received a very similar email wanting 600USD or they'd release my information to the Dark web. I clicked nothing, paid nothing, and nothing seemed to happen that they were saying would.

As @PCUser said, it's a bluff.

Patsy1011 · Mar 1, 2026

You have been so helpful and comforting -- I went to the Spybot Search & Destroy site. I have MWB and Windows Defender on this pc. Is it ok to run Spybot if I have those other two? Thanks so much again.

Patsy1011 · Mar 1, 2026

jvickers said:
I received a very similar email wanting 600USD or they'd release my information to the Dark web. I clicked nothing, paid nothing, and nothing seemed to happen that they were saying would.

As @PCUser said, it's a bluff.

That's exactly what I received. Guess we'll be ok -- thanks for input.

Helmut · Mar 1, 2026

Mark the Email as Junk, then Delete the Email, and then delete from the Deleted folder.

Such scareware Emails are only a threat if you fiddle about and are too curious.

No need for Spybot S&D, that will just confuse things & add complications for no effect.
Marking the Email as Junk will train the spam filters in time.

Patsy1011 · Mar 1, 2026

Well, since I am always looking for less complications in my life, I think I will follow your advice. Thanks so much.

kelper · Mar 1, 2026

Just ignore it. If a scammer had access, he would prove it by calling you by name and providing evidence that he had access to your account.

kelper · Mar 1, 2026

Were the extra spaces in the email there, or did you add them? If they were there in the original, this is the scammer trying to make the email look different to thousands of others in a pathetic attempt to bypass spam blockers. I'm puzzled because most email clients would have marked this as spam.

Patsy1011 · Mar 1, 2026

The spaces were there. Maybe because it was addressed to me from me T-Bird didn't pick it up as spam. IDK - I'm just glad it was a scammer and not something more serious. There's just so much scamming going on nowadays, whether thru your phone or any other devices you use. Thanks for your thoughts.

jvickers · Mar 1, 2026

kelper said:
Were the extra spaces in the email there, or did you add them? If they were there in the original, this is the scammer trying to make the email look different to thousands of others in a pathetic attempt to bypass spam blockers. I'm puzzled because most email clients would have marked this as spam.

It probably didn't mark is as Spam because the OP indicated that it came from their email address and that you can't block email from yourself. Not sure. That's just my guess. Email spoofing?

kelper · Mar 1, 2026

It's quite easy to send an email with the sender address faked. If it had been sent from the OP's own email, it would be in his 'sent' folder. The text is an exact copy of thousands of similar rip-off emails - just Google it after removing all the spaces. It was probably sent by some spotty, little script jockey.

jvickers · Mar 1, 2026

kelper said:
It's quite easy to send an email with the sender address faked. If it had been sent from the OP's own email, it would be in his 'sent' folder. The text is an exact copy of thousands of similar rip-off emails - just Google it after removing all the spaces. It was probably sent by some spotty, little script jockey.

Yes, I received one just like it, except it didn't reflect my email address. I deleted it.

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