The Importance of Being Earnest

Sometimes you receive email from someone who sounds so real and the content is so earnest, you cannot resist replying ... even if the content is so bogus that you just KNOW it's a sham.  But you must resist the temptation anyway.

I recently received the following email:

Dear *****  

I just sent you an email note and apparently this got confused with sp*a*m. You may recall my earlier correspondence regarding our defending gun rights, including the work by our Research Fellow Stephen Halbrook, the renowned Second Amendment legal scholar, author and attorney:

xxxxx DELETED LINK TO STEPHEN HOLBROOK PROFILE AT INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE xxxxx

Hence, would you be so kind as to advise your email provider to remove your spam complaint?
Thank you again!
Best regards,
David

[obfuscatory text and highlighting added]

He didn't send me a previous email, nothing was 'confused' (my software works differently), and if an earlier email had been quarantined by my security software, then this email would have suffered the same fate.

I have not, of course, been corresponding directly with any member of the Independence Institute.  The premise is bogus, as is the entire email.



The sender of the email identifies himself as DAVID J. THOREAUX ... Founder, President and CEO of The Independent Institute.  And while I've carefully wiped any html link code from the text I've entered here, I haven't bothered to respond to the email.

The obvious intent was to encourage me to reply via email, this (a) establishing my email address as an active account, and (b) establishing myself as a gullible person (AKA: A Target)

Lesson Learned: no matter how cleverly such email approaches are worded, we must be careful to resist the lures they provide.  Email doesn't provide any confirmation that the sender is who he claims to be.