And Now We Face the Day After — Red-ly

Re “A Bizarre Prank Played on Mr. Z?”

After committing a gaffe of electronic naiveté yesterday, I recalled a memorable morning of similar embarrassment years ago at high school Summer Band Camp.

Suspecting that the camp’s presumed moral code had been breached (accidentally, of course) by an adventurous young boy and girl, the band director, Ken Morrissey, stealthily approached the cabin accommodating the experimenters. Bellowing loudly enough to be heard by recently deceased cows in the adjoining pasture, Mr. Morrison said, threateningly, to the terrified boy: “Your face better be as red as my hair when you come out of there. Now.”

The alleged culprit’s face was scarlet and so is mine this morning after a snookering yesterday involving City Council candidate Robert Zirgulis and a bogus email sent out under his signature.

It Turnsout to be a scam of familiar proportions and content, according to an avalanche of correspondence we received minutes after phony email was printed with accompanying commentary.

Here is a sampling:

Ari – This is an old, old scam – done (usually) by out of the country. Email phishers usually break into either someone’s email or Facebook account. First I heard of it was last year but it could have been going on a lot longer. All you have to do is Google “stranded in london email scam” or “stranded traveler email scam” and up pops tops of stuff about it.

http://www.news.com.au/scammers-hack-into-facebook-accounts/story-0-1111118626242

http://blogan.net/blog/2009/05/18/the-stranded-traveler-scam/

http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/nigerian-scammers-still-roosting-on-facebook

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/how-an-internet-scam-wrought-havoc-in-my-life-1418761.html

I am 100 percent positive the hack was done by a phisher/hacker and not anyone in Culver City, or anyone related to any candidate, in any way whatsoever.

Also:

Ari: I received a similar email last week regarding a cousin who had me on his mailing list. A virus got control of my cousin's email list and sent them all out. It is a spoof email — nothing more. Do a Google search.

Ari: FYI. Click on the link. It will take you to a page where many people have complained about the same e-mail (and variations of the same) dating back to 2008. I can send you more examples if you’d like.

http://www.topix.com/forum/tech/computer-security/T0ITDNSI1D1U9EKOO/p2

And Then There Is the Candidate

Mr. Zirgulis this morning sent along the following

Some of my friends know that I've been around the world three times. They actually thought that the bogus email sent to them was real. One friend wrote to apologize that she couldn't send me money to help me out.

I am offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the identity, prosecution and conviction of the scumbag that hijacked my email account!