Not-so-gentle reminders to watch for e-mail scams

Recently, e-mail villains have attempted to tailor their scams to recipients, causing normally cautious people to fall for the scam (or at least forgo the acquired filter-ignore-delete strategy).

This is good news in a sense, as it implies fewer people are falling for scams and the perpetrators find it necessary to pump up the volume.

The bad news: These new strategies still pull in suckers and necessitate new warnings and columns stating that any stranger who asks you for money is a crook.

The first example, reported in the Santa Fe New Mexican, exposes a scam that targets massage therapists.

The e-mail claims to be from a massage therapist who lives in the United Kingdom. He has a client — a fashion model — who plans to come to the local area soon and will need massages when she arrives. The model will pay for the massages with a $5,520 certified bank check, the e-mail says.

The scammer sends the check to the masseuse who cashes it, takes out certain fees and sends the remainder to a third party.

Since the check is counterfeit, the masseuses lose whatever money they send with the illusion they received some payment.

The red flag here is "certified bank check." Such documents are easily forged, and the helpful masseuse could deposit the check and wire the "remainder" to another source before determining it was a fake.

The senders were hoping their marks would fall for the scam out of professional courtesy and would send along the money to help a colleague.

It's not sure if anyone fell for this. The newspaper said police contacted all 34 therapists (this is Santa Fe, after all) and received an incomplete response.

Another scam is somewhat more frightening. As reported by several papers, e-mail threats demanded money or the recipient would be killed.

Again, it's impossible to say how many fell for this or if the threats managed to include any personal details that would indicate the senders even knew who the recipients were.

Even so, getting such a message can rattle your world.

Consider the perspective of parents: Someone may send a message threatening their children, and it would be a rare parent who doesn't consider keeping the kids home that particular day.

You can't get a message like this without feeling violated. I imagine it will cause your neck hair to stand up straight and for you to jump when you hear a loud noise.

The best path is to go about your life as usual, that is, after calling the police.

A third creepy e-mail comes from a Pennsylvania state patrolman warning drivers not to flash their lights at another car when it has its lights off. These cars could be cruising gang members sworn to kill anyone who flashes their brights as part of an initiation ritual.

Except the warning is another forgery, as much as a huge check from a masseuse in London.

These three examples are different but share a certain violence. They invade your life and make you feel colleagues can't be trusted, someone is out to hurt you and committing a preventive safety act can get you killed.

The best way to deal with these violations is to recall a shopworn proverb that is nonetheless appropriate: Don't believe everything you read from people you don't know.

If you have questions or suggestions for Charles Bermant, you can contact him by e-mail at cbermant@seattletimes.com. Type Inbox in the subject field. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.