Does anyone know Paul Hulbert?

Submitted by JMB on Wed 21/Jul/2010

I received the following email from: paul.hulbert@gmail.com

subject: My Horrible Experience

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes. I came down here to Madrid, Spain for a short vacation unfortunately I was mugged at the park of the hotel where I stayed, all  cash, credit card and cell phone were stolen off me but luckily for me I still have my passport with me.

I have been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and my flight  leaves in few hours from now but I'm having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel  manager won't let me leave until I settle the bills,

I need urgent help.I'm freaked out at the moment.

Paul

The normally voracious Gmail spam filter didn’t object to it. And it isn’t trying to sell me something. Could it be some sort of peculiar viral marketing?

Anyway, on the off-chance that this is legitimate, if anyone knows Paul Hulbert, please give him a bell as he sounds like a bit of a big girl’s blouse, and he needs some assistance.

[Update] Paul Hulbert is apparently real, he writes a blog and he is not it Madrid. And I imagine he's going to be changing his gmail password very soon.

[Update 2] My reply to the scammers

Comments

I've had exactly the same

Submitted by Nathan Cavin on Thu 22/Jul/2010.
I've had exactly the same message, so we must both be linked to him in some way! Further google research suggests his gmail account has been hacked as there have been similar emails sent from hacked accounts... I was almost tempted to reply and string the hackers along!

The thick plottens...

Submitted by JMB on Thu 22/Jul/2010.

The thick plottens...

The link is that we have a

Submitted by Paul Hulbert on Thu 22/Jul/2010.

The link is that we have a common friend who once emailed us all. There are a few things that everyone can learn from my experience.

Firstly, it wasn't malware - I suspect I was taken in by a bit of social engineering - I recently signed up to a service recommended by a normally reliable website, and I used the same password. I won't do that again!

Secondly, the hacker made it hard to notify everyone because they deleted the contacts list - I can gradually reassemble this from the archived emails, but it'll take time. Have YOU got a recent backup of the contact list from your webmail system? I didn't, but I have now.

Thirdly, check that your email hasn't been set to auto-forward to somewhere undesirable. I checked that and found that the hacker was monitoring activities after I'd reset the password.

Finally, the messages had a different reply-to address - if you get a strange email, check whether your reply is going to the the address you think it is.

Several people did string the hacker along, but americanisms and deteriorating grammar in later emails told them that it wasn't me.

Paul

Here's a handy little tool

Submitted by JMB on Fri 23/Jul/2010.

Here's a handy little tool for password management:

http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/