why do I have a british high commission scam?

[Deana Maynard]

Everytime I try to compose a new email with my yahoo account this is attached to it ...

BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION, YOUR SCAMM RE COMPENSATION.
BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION
Metro Plaza, Plot 991/992
Zakari Maimalari Street
Cadastral Zone AO,
Central Business District, Abuja.
TEL: +2347037739708
bhc_highcommission01@yahoo.com

Attention,

The BRITISH High Commission in Nigeria,Benin Republic,Ghana and Bukina faso received a report of scam against you and other British/US citizens and Malaysia Etc. The countries of Nigeria Benin Republic, Bukina faso and Ghana have recompensed you following the meeting held with the Four countries' Government and various countries' high commission for the fraudulent activities carried out by the Four countries' Citizens. Your name was among those scammed as listed by the Nigeria Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU).A Compensation has been issued out to all the affected victims and has been already in endorsement to all the victims. Yours was among those that was reported unpaid as at on Friday and we wish to advise you to see to the instructions of the Committee to make sure you receive your compensation immediately.

We advise that you do the needful to make sure the NFIU endorse your payment on Monday. Contact the office of the consular for an advise on how your recompense will be effected to you. Be advised that you should stop further contacts with all the fake lawyers and security companies who in collaboration scammed you. furnish us with the following details to satisfy you for the recompensation.

Full Name:
Home address:
Country:
Marital status:
Sex:
Occupation/profession:
Mobile number:
Age:

Call : +2347037739708 immediately to check if the delivery date suits you.

Yours in Service,
Robert Dewar, CONSULAR,
BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION
bhc_highcommission01@yahoo.com


what is this crap and how do I get it off my email?

[cooingsnow765]

There are scam busting sites with online lists of the names scammers use, their fake job offers, their email addresses, stock copy/paste emails, paid-for-in-cash cell phone numbers, stolen pictures and fake websites they use. You could start your search and post/ask at such sites.

If you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even partial sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

[Kittysue]

Someone has hacked your account
From your Inbox, click on the Gear icon on the upper right next to where it says Hi, Yourname
Then click Mail Options
Then Signature. The pulldown menu should say Don't Use a Signature

Also you need to do all of the following right away
- change your password ASAP, make sure the alternate address is still yours and make sure you have a security question and answer set
- - if you used your same username and password for ANY other site, you need to immediately change the passwords on ALL of those accounts. Unfortunately 80% of people use the same username and password for everything. Hackers know this and once they know your email login they'll try those same details on Facebook, Paypal, Twitter, Linkedin, Amazon, EBay, every major bank and credit card company, etc to try and hack those accounts as well
- if your emails contained ANY financial information (Paypal receipts, online banking statement, credit card bills, et) you need to IMMEDIATELY inform these institutions. You will have to freeze your bank and credit card accounts and get new account numbers and cards sent to you. Set up a new email address to change your Paypal account. These hackers will go through all of your emails to see if there is anything they can use to steal your money and identity