Is this real or SPAM?

I got the email below the asterisks from the address "MSI HQ User to User
Forum" <(E-Mail Removed)>. It smacks of a way to get replies in
order to construct a live email database.


************************************************** **********People, as this
forum is by and for users, we want to know your opinion.
So please vote if we should change them or not.
If you have a better idea, then let us know too....and no we won't close the
forum because you don't like us nor will we update to the latest version of
SMF :lol_anim:

Currently we have the icons in the forum:



and



We are thinking of replacing then with:

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck
"Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your
profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0

Regards,
The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team.

Lee Beck wrote:
> I got the email below the asterisks from the address "MSI HQ User
> to User Forum" <(E-Mail Removed)>. It smacks of a way
> to get replies in order to construct a live email database.
>
> ************************************************** **********People,
> as this forum is by and for users, we want to know your opinion.
> So please vote if we should change them or not.
> If you have a better idea, then let us know too....and no we won't
> close the forum because you don't like us nor will we update to the
> latest version of SMF :lol_anim:
>
> Currently we have the icons in the forum:
>
> and
>
> We are thinking of replacing then with:
>
> To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and
> uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by
> email." in your profile.
>
> You can view the full announcement by following this link:
>
> http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0
>
> Regards,
> The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team.

Did you ask for it? Agree to it? Ever been a member of said forum?

Did you go directly to the forum and ask the admins if so?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Lee Beck wrote:

> I got the email below the asterisks from the address "MSI HQ User to User
> Forum" <(E-Mail Removed)>. It smacks of a way to get replies in
> order to construct a live email database.
>
> ************************************************** **********People, as this
> forum is by and for users, we want to know your opinion.
> So please vote if we should change them or not.
> If you have a better idea, then let us know too....and no we won't close the
> forum because you don't like us nor will we update to the latest version of
> SMF :lol_anim:
>
> Currently we have the icons in the forum:
>
> and
>
> We are thinking of replacing then with:
>
> To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck
> "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your
> profile.
>
> You can view the full announcement by following this link:
>
> http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0
>
> Regards,
> The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team.

And just WHERE did that e-mail ask you to send a reply (via e-mail)? It
tells you to log into your account at that forum. If you don't want their
notices then just go to your forum account and change your preferences to
stop getting them. Geesh, how hard is it for you to remember whether or not
or ever registered at that forum to create a profile there?

Well - it appears to be a Microsoft email but the address begins with
forum-en for one thing. Information harvesters are getting very clever in
sucking you into providing information under the guise of surveys and other
seeming harmless questions. General advice is not even to unsubscribe from
potentially untrustworthy sites.

But your response is very helpful.....I guess.

"VanguardLH" wrote:

> Lee Beck wrote:
>
> > I got the email below the asterisks from the address "MSI HQ User to User
> > Forum" <(E-Mail Removed)>. It smacks of a way to get replies in
> > order to construct a live email database.
> >
> > ************************************************** **********People, as this
> > forum is by and for users, we want to know your opinion.
> > So please vote if we should change them or not.
> > If you have a better idea, then let us know too....and no we won't close the
> > forum because you don't like us nor will we update to the latest version of
> > SMF :lol_anim:
> >
> > Currently we have the icons in the forum:
> >
> > and
> >
> > We are thinking of replacing then with:
> >
> > To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck
> > "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your
> > profile.
> >
> > You can view the full announcement by following this link:
> >
> > http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0
> >
> > Regards,
> > The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team.
>
> And just WHERE did that e-mail ask you to send a reply (via e-mail)? It
> tells you to log into your account at that forum. If you don't want their
> notices then just go to your forum account and change your preferences to
> stop getting them. Geesh, how hard is it for you to remember whether or not
> or ever registered at that forum to create a profile there?
> .
>

Lee Beck wrote:
> I got the email below the asterisks from the address "MSI HQ User
> to User Forum" <(E-Mail Removed)>. It smacks of a way
> to get replies in order to construct a live email database.
>
<email quote>
> People,
> as this forum is by and for users, we want to know your opinion. So
> please vote if we should change them or not. If you have a better
> idea, then let us know too....and no we won't close the forum
> because you don't like us nor will we update to the latest version
> of SMF :lol_anim:
>
> Currently we have the icons in the forum:
>
> and
>
> We are thinking of replacing then with:
>
> To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and
> uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by
> email." in your profile.
>
> You can view the full announcement by following this link:
> http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0
>
> Regards,
> The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team.
</email quote>

VanguardLH wrote:
> And just WHERE did that e-mail ask you to send a reply (via
> e-mail)? It tells you to log into your account at that forum. If
> you don't want their notices then just go to your forum account and
> change your preferences to stop getting them. Geesh, how hard is
> it for you to remember whether or not or ever registered at that
> forum to create a profile there?

Lee Beck wrote:
> Well - it appears to be a Microsoft email but the address begins
> with forum-en for one thing. Information harvesters are getting
> very clever in sucking you into providing information under the
> guise of surveys and other seeming harmless questions. General
> advice is not even to unsubscribe from potentially untrustworthy
> sites.
>
> But your response is very helpful.....I guess.

No - you have pointed out the very problem in your own posting and
response - the actual issue with these things and why people fall for them.
They don't read and/or they don't pay attention and even if they do, they do
no actual research to verify what they think something might be - they just
go off, half-informed and wonder why the sky is falling on them and no one
else..

Let's clarify what you posted and what this is. It looks like a legitimate
email to me for you from a hardware company forum you likely used at some
point in the past for something.

You just said, "Well - it appears to be a Microsoft email but the address
begins with forum-en for one thing" --> however, it you look at your
original posting (archived indefinitely) you will clearly see where it
supposedly came from, "MSI HQ User to User Forum
<(E-Mail Removed)>" <- your words, your quote of where it comes
from.

MSI is a hardware company - likely a forum you signed up on at some point in
your life (or not if this is pure spam). They make many hardware products
(from graphics cards to motherboards even laptops and servers.

http://www.msi.com/

MSI is not "Microsoft". It is not all that close either. Microsoft is
microsoft.com.

The forum address is the english version of the forum.
http://forum-en.msi.com/

I am betting that if you went there and entered the email address you got
the message at in the form to request your forgotten password:
http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?action=reminder

You'd shortly get an email that would tell you your username (maybe - if it
is not just your email address) and the password or a method to reset it.

Even the link you gave is a valid one:
http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0
.... that shows the entire forum post active even today (it was originally
posted on February 7, 2010 by Bas, Chief nut :-), Administrator.)

Here's their current line of products:
http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=prodindex

So this is what I see - you jumped when you got an email that you did not
recognize. That's not a bad thing. It's good to be somewhat paranoid these
days, verification is always at your hands however. Instead of trying to
figure out what it was - you jumped (per your own logic posted here 36 hours
after your initial posting) to the conclusion that because the letters "MS"
were close together in the email address (ignoring the fact that "I"
followed close there after and the email address was far from
non-descriptive) it must be a Microsoft thing.

All you had to do was cautiously check up on things. Type the end of the
email address into a search engine. Type the descriptive part of the email
address into a search engine. Try out the end of the email address as an
actual web page address (msi.com or forum-en.msi.com in this case.) You may
have discovered some distant past recollection that you once had trouble
with one of the motherboards and asked a question about it, or a graphic
card maybe. Some other product?

It doesn't take much, from the safety of your own home or office,
cautiously, to flush out the good from the bad.

Paranoia is good, the problem is that people just see what they want instead
of what is actually there. This is not an objective thing in this case,
either. You quoted the entire email, the from address, etc. It wasn't an
interpretation problem, but a comprehension/attention span one. The answer
to whether or not this was spam for you lie in the very email you originally
quoted and asked everyone else in a non-related newsgroup to figure out for
you.

I know - it takes a little effort, a little investigation and some careful
reading of what you got - very little if you see the process I went through
to come to the conclusions I did above - or it took none to delete what you
thought was spam and wasn't worried about really. You took a third road -
but at least it will be archived indefinitely here:

.... And if you realize you are a member (from some past incident with their
products or someone in your family when you only had whatever email address
you got this on for all of them or something) of their forum - please - come
back and let everyone here know. Clear up the mystery, blow away the smoke,
take down the mirrors and open the curtain into whether or not you have ever
been to the MSI forums (english versions) for any reason. It's the right
thing to do.

Here is the archived indefinitely (one of anyway) version of this
conversation:
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...f2251433154eb/

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Hello,

Personally, I don't recommend following E-Mail Links. See article:

http://sharepoint.falconits.com/secu...irus/Home.aspx

If you are savvy, read the URL and if you are confident that the
domain name is correct, then go for it. Otherwise you are being lured
into something... Malware pages usually obfuscate the domain name in
the URL to try and trick you. Explorer 7 and beyond display the domain
name in BOLD letters in order to help you avoid being tricked.

Scroll to the last page of this article to see what i'm talking about:

http://sharepoint.falconits.com/Arti...rd%20Theft.pdf


Cheers,


Miguel Fra / Falcon ITS
http://www.falconits.com

An absolutely first-class answer, Shenan.

You deserve a medal for your patience!

I do hope the OP reports back as you have requested.

--
Dave




"Shenan Stanley" wrote:

> Lee Beck wrote:
> > I got the email below the asterisks from the address "MSI HQ User
> > to User Forum" <(E-Mail Removed)>. It smacks of a way
> > to get replies in order to construct a live email database.
> >
> <email quote>
> > People,
> > as this forum is by and for users, we want to know your opinion. So
> > please vote if we should change them or not. If you have a better
> > idea, then let us know too....and no we won't close the forum
> > because you don't like us nor will we update to the latest version
> > of SMF :lol_anim:
> >
> > Currently we have the icons in the forum:
> >
> > and
> >
> > We are thinking of replacing then with:
> >
> > To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and
> > uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by
> > email." in your profile.
> >
> > You can view the full announcement by following this link:
> > http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0
> >
> > Regards,
> > The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team.
> </email quote>
>
> VanguardLH wrote:
> > And just WHERE did that e-mail ask you to send a reply (via
> > e-mail)? It tells you to log into your account at that forum. If
> > you don't want their notices then just go to your forum account and
> > change your preferences to stop getting them. Geesh, how hard is
> > it for you to remember whether or not or ever registered at that
> > forum to create a profile there?
>
> Lee Beck wrote:
> > Well - it appears to be a Microsoft email but the address begins
> > with forum-en for one thing. Information harvesters are getting
> > very clever in sucking you into providing information under the
> > guise of surveys and other seeming harmless questions. General
> > advice is not even to unsubscribe from potentially untrustworthy
> > sites.
> >
> > But your response is very helpful.....I guess.
>
> No - you have pointed out the very problem in your own posting and
> response - the actual issue with these things and why people fall for them.
> They don't read and/or they don't pay attention and even if they do, they do
> no actual research to verify what they think something might be - they just
> go off, half-informed and wonder why the sky is falling on them and no one
> else..
>
> Let's clarify what you posted and what this is. It looks like a legitimate
> email to me for you from a hardware company forum you likely used at some
> point in the past for something.
>
> You just said, "Well - it appears to be a Microsoft email but the address
> begins with forum-en for one thing" --> however, it you look at your
> original posting (archived indefinitely) you will clearly see where it
> supposedly came from, "MSI HQ User to User Forum
> <(E-Mail Removed)>" <- your words, your quote of where it comes
> from.
>
> MSI is a hardware company - likely a forum you signed up on at some point in
> your life (or not if this is pure spam). They make many hardware products
> (from graphics cards to motherboards even laptops and servers.
>
> http://www.msi.com/
>
> MSI is not "Microsoft". It is not all that close either. Microsoft is
> microsoft.com.
>
> The forum address is the english version of the forum.
> http://forum-en.msi.com/
>
> I am betting that if you went there and entered the email address you got
> the message at in the form to request your forgotten password:
> http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?action=reminder
>
> You'd shortly get an email that would tell you your username (maybe - if it
> is not just your email address) and the password or a method to reset it.
>
> Even the link you gave is a valid one:
> http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135414.0
> .... that shows the entire forum post active even today (it was originally
> posted on February 7, 2010 by Bas, Chief nut :-), Administrator.)
>
> Here's their current line of products:
> http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=prodindex
>
> So this is what I see - you jumped when you got an email that you did not
> recognize. That's not a bad thing. It's good to be somewhat paranoid these
> days, verification is always at your hands however. Instead of trying to
> figure out what it was - you jumped (per your own logic posted here 36 hours
> after your initial posting) to the conclusion that because the letters "MS"
> were close together in the email address (ignoring the fact that "I"
> followed close there after and the email address was far from
> non-descriptive) it must be a Microsoft thing.
>
> All you had to do was cautiously check up on things. Type the end of the
> email address into a search engine. Type the descriptive part of the email
> address into a search engine. Try out the end of the email address as an
> actual web page address (msi.com or forum-en.msi.com in this case.) You may
> have discovered some distant past recollection that you once had trouble
> with one of the motherboards and asked a question about it, or a graphic
> card maybe. Some other product?
>
> It doesn't take much, from the safety of your own home or office,
> cautiously, to flush out the good from the bad.
>
> Paranoia is good, the problem is that people just see what they want instead
> of what is actually there. This is not an objective thing in this case,
> either. You quoted the entire email, the from address, etc. It wasn't an
> interpretation problem, but a comprehension/attention span one. The answer
> to whether or not this was spam for you lie in the very email you originally
> quoted and asked everyone else in a non-related newsgroup to figure out for
> you.
>
> I know - it takes a little effort, a little investigation and some careful
> reading of what you got - very little if you see the process I went through
> to come to the conclusions I did above - or it took none to delete what you
> thought was spam and wasn't worried about really. You took a third road -
> but at least it will be archived indefinitely here:
>
> .... And if you realize you are a member (from some past incident with their
> products or someone in your family when you only had whatever email address
> you got this on for all of them or something) of their forum - please - come
> back and let everyone here know. Clear up the mystery, blow away the smoke,
> take down the mirrors and open the curtain into whether or not you have ever
> been to the MSI forums (english versions) for any reason. It's the right
> thing to do.
>
> Here is the archived indefinitely (one of anyway) version of this
> conversation:
> http://groups.google.com/group/micro...f2251433154eb/
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP
> --
> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
>
> .
>