Is This Email Genuine or a Scam? Seeking Advice on a Suspicious Message from CiteHR

Dear readers, do you find this email genuine? I received it today on Yahoo Mail (personal mail); hence, I thought I would share it with you as information/alertness, or maybe someone is trying to fool us.

Email Content

Hello my dear,

I went through your profile and found it very unique and interesting to me. I greatly admire you and your personality, so I decided to correspond with you as soon as possible and try to get to know you better. I hardly correspond with people on the internet, but there's something about you that caught my attention. I hope that you will reply to my email soon and give me the chance to introduce myself to you and take our relationship a step further. Please tell me more about yourself in general.

I saw your email at www.citehr.com.

I will be eagerly waiting for your quick response, and I am certain that I made the right choice in corresponding at the right time. Please email me back for further details. There's something I want to disclose with you when I write to you next. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.

With regards,
Henna.

Hey Yasmin, thanks for sharing such important information with the members here. It doesn't sound genuine to me, and this is why we ask members on the forum not to share their phone numbers and email addresses publicly. You never know who might end up getting that information. If someone absolutely wants to exchange personal email addresses, they can do so through private messages, but only with people they have been communicating with in the past here.

Just ignore it for now. Also, if you can share (through private message) the email address you received this mail from, we can check it out.

Thanks again for sharing, and don't be worried. 

I too got this mail. This is one more ploy of Nigerian fraudsters. Don't get panicky! Simply delete such mail and feel good about it. Fraudsters skim various websites looking for email IDs and send mail at random. I got a mail from a person named Henna. The moment I saw the English style, without any proper introduction, I knew it was the first step for committing fraud!

Daily, one gets Coca Cola Award, Email Award, Yahoo Award, etc., in your mail. I hereby wish to share with our HR fraternity that GREEDINESS IS THE MOTHER OF ALL MISERIES. Nobody will give you anything gratis (free of cost!). Without you putting any effort, if somebody is giving you an award, please smell the rat!

Also, I have seen mail from many fraudsters who locate your email ID from job portals, informing you that you have been selected for an appointment and that you should deposit around Rs.6000 for a medical check-up. The amount is to be deposited in a bank account.

Please remember that no corporate worth the name will send mail from a Yahoo or Gmail ID. They will have their own servers. Secondly, no organization will ask for money for a medical check-up. It is done free of cost. Thirdly, without any interview, nobody will select you for a job! Recently, I myself have received mail with a logo and company name such as Maruti Suzuki! In fact, a few years ago, we caught such a person who had in his possession visiting cards of our company and had cheated a few innocent people. However, the card was not the standard type we used in our company.

Kindly spread the word to all others so that gullible people do not fall prey to such tricks!

Understanding Phishing Emails

Don't take these emails so seriously. They are junk and 100% frauds. We call them phishing in technical terms. They will obtain some of your details and then ask you to send money to them, offering you lucrative deals. Once you pay them, they will request more money. You may even receive gifts from them (bricks/stones) in a carton box.

Ensure there is a single line break between paragraphs.

I second Archna, Bhaskar, MSayeed, and Sundaram. Please report them as spam so that you no longer receive them. I get such emails from sites I don't even know exist. These are mass mailers. It's purely a scam. Please continue to ignore every such email or message.

Regards,
(Cite Contribution)

Dear N.K. SUNDARAM, Even though our email addresses are not official, does that mean either you or I are frauds? Email IDs cannot differentiate in that way. Whether it's @yahoo or @gmail, it's just the service we are using. In terms of English style, if we check and inquire with those who have been victims of fraud, you will find that they are often well-educated. It costs a maximum of Rs 2000 to get 5 business email IDs (myname@domain.com). We need to be cautious and able to differentiate these emails. Yes, I agree that they are mostly Nigerians, but they are operating from India as well. Some Indians are also involved with them.

Regards, Pulak

Clarification on Email Authenticity

You missed the point in my mail. Those fraudsters who target gullible people for jobs in leading companies use personal email IDs with Yahoo and Gmail, whereas companies use their own IDs through their servers. People should be aware that leading companies largely do not use Yahoo or Gmail IDs. Hope you understood my line of thought.

Best wishes,
NK Sundaram

Dear Yasmin, I know that email must have been a big surprise. I, too, have received such emails, but I haven't given them any importance at all. I don't know whether people (who are they?) are paid for sending such fake/junk emails. Kindly report it as SPAM and enjoy your life. Have a nice day.

With profound regards,

I also agree with the seniors. Please ignore the mail; there is no free dinner. We have to be more cautious. If anything seems fishy, we must cross-check before taking any action so that any harm or loss can be avoided.

Recently, there is a Singapore survey company that is in the news for their fraudulent (according to the media) business in India. It seems that the company had cheated lakhs of people (but it is yet to be confirmed by the government) with an economically unsustainable and Ponzi business model. Government authorities are looking into this, and the picture will be clear within the coming days. Buyer beware!!!!

Yes, I agree with all the senior members. Even I deleted my photo, and neither will I give my email address or phone number. Apart from this, I receive such phishing emails daily, in quantities of 3 to 4. I simply delete them, and if they use brand company names, for example, like [Login to view], I inform the TCS concerns by sending them an email with attached information about the email.

To the extent of the fake, last week I received an email in the name of RBI. I tried reaching the email address of RBI but was not able to do so due to their complicated site pattern. Anyways, my intention in posting this message here was to find out whether it was really genuine or fake, as well as to inform other members.

Yes, I agree with all the senior members. I have also deleted my photo, and I will not provide my email address or phone number. Apart from this, I receive phishing emails daily, typically 3 to 4. I simply delete them, and if they use brand company names, for example, like [Login to view], I inform the concerned authorities at TCS by sending them an email and attaching the information about the phishing email.

To the height of the fakeness, last week, I received an email claiming to be from RBI. I tried reaching out to the email address of RBI but was unable to do so due to their complicated website pattern.

Anyways, my intention in posting this message here was to find out whether it was genuinely fake, as well as to inform other members.

Hello professionals,

After reading all of your discussions, I just wanted to say that Yasmin, please ignore that email. We are mature enough to decide which emails we should reply to. Not posting our email address and phone number is not the solution; instead, we should decide for ourselves whether we want to reply or not. Continuation of such emails may be frustrating, but if we don't, there may be some people who are genuinely seeking information. We can understand this by their language and mail writing skills.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing this information. From now onwards, I will be careful about sharing my email ID because I thought on HR sites only HR personnel share knowledge. Thanks to other people as well for suggesting ways to avoid this and providing more information on this.

Regards.