A possible assist with your opening problem....

> But, it didn't appear to be spam. I have ads in a number of directories,
> not all of which I remember the names.

> It had my specific ad copy, not some generic stuff they pulled from my
> website or a post here, but an actual ad that I had posted a year or two
> earlier. Do you remember every forum, message board, and other site that
> you visited, and may have left a post, ad, or directory listing?

> It's very similar to the eBay spoofing scam. They send the spoofs out to
> 100K people, and they'll hit a number of registered eBay users. The logo
> is correct. The terminology is accurate. Even all the links are directed
> to the primary eBay site - except the one they ask you to use to correct
> the problem.

> This spam scam was targeted very much to me and my business. It was far
> more deceptive than the telemarketers who call wanting to verify my
> listing for their directory. I'm always prepared for those, as I never
> have more than one paid yellow pages ad, and it is always with a local
> directory.

> In this case, it's a matter of habit that I always read the Terms of
> Service Agreement, even with companies I know and have used previously.

> When you receive 100 to 200 emails per day, many from potential suppliers
> you have never contacted before - You have to open many before you assume
> it is spam. The one I delete as spam, could be an unknown supplier of the
> purple widgets I've been searching for to satisfy a client.

> The promotional advertising iondustry includes over 3800 suppliers. Even
> if the email used the commonly known name, I wouldn't recognize half of
> them after 22 years in this business.

> My Bell South webmail has Mailguard, which is a fairly aggressive
> filtering system. The scam email, made it passed the filter. Mailguard is
> an intelligent program, that adjusts the filtering according to my marking
> the incoming mail for spam.

> But, with 30 to 70 pieces of spam per day, not all of them get caught. You
> can by eBooks that tell you how to send out mass mailings and get by the
> ISP and individual spam filters. A percentage will get through.

> Which is why I was alert enough to avoid their trap this time.

> Dennis Bevers

I do understand your explanation, Dennis, that's why I'd like to suggest an additional 'helper' with knowing what to open on the questionable ones. You see, when I was doing writing I'd often get email from folks I never knew existed either and the following is what I found to help with the associated problems.

I use, and highly recommend, PocoMail. Why? Because, directly from my desktop, I can view things on the server without logging into webmail. There is an option that allows me to 'view' however many lines I set it for (after experimenting, I found that 25 lines worked for me) without opening the message. Then I can choose to leave on server, forward, open, delete, etc... Has saved my bacon a few times when I thought I recognized the name or source but wasn't sure.

Wishing you all the best always,