Yeah, don't send any money, I already wired the $2500, so it's taken care of. Seriously, this scam, as lame as it looks, does catch a few people here and there, and so will continue. And it is scary that people can get into your email address book if your computer is improperly exposed. As long as crooks can sit in the comfort of their homes and anonymously collect money from vulnerable people with no fear of being caught, this sort of thing will only get worse.

It can happen to anyone that has/uses a CC. I have had two occurrences in recent years, one at a local national brand self-service station, where an employee pulled the CC # from the computer and sold it for International LD calls. CC company called when the charges hit $700, because I had never used the card for that purpose. I hope he is still in prison! But that's doubtful. Second case was for numerous shipping charges from the gigantic book/everything else under the sun seller. Stock excuse; They blamed a computer error. Computers aren't crooks, people are! BTW, it can happen on ebay also. Several years ago, after I had placed an order, someone hijacked my account and changed the shipping address. Fortunately, the seller emailed me before shipping, to confirm the address. The idiots at ebay refused to do anything and when I managed to correct the account, I received a scathing email from ebay accusing me of hijacking the account! You can rest assured, I will never do business there again. A big plus; I don't have to clean out the cookie-jar, to remove all of the Spyware I picked up everytime I loaded their website!

You feel how you feel, whether it's justified or not, that's that. But as you seem to suspect you should have overcome a long ago negative experience and haven't (and I agree with you), you're not doing anyone a favor by passing on such an overly sensitive view as "advice". If that's "just you", fine. Keep it just FOR you too. Or, at least let others know where you stand with something like "I had a bad experience and since then I don't fully rely on security software. I may be overly cautious, but this is what I do....... " OK? (Reason being, many who come here for advice are true novices and may readily assume that offered advice that's alarming and overly cautious about their situation is warranted. Panic spreads too easily)

I watched my elderly MIL decline mentally over a period of about 25 years. Prior to her retirement as a director of human resources for a US manufacturing company, she was smart and capable. But age took its toll on her mind. The signs of cognitive decline are quite subtle, and the person can go for years concealing their illness. That's what she did - she was an excellent liar - and unfortunately, for many years she was essentially living a financial lie. Credit card companies will give you more and more credit as long as you pay the minimum on your bill, which she did. One scam she got caught up in was a phone service. She believed that she had purchased insurance for her telephone lines. If there were any problem, this company that she paid monthly would repair the lines in and outside the house. In reality, she paid $7 or $8 per month for years to rent a cheap phone the company had sent her, besides paying her normal bill to the phone company. My ex-husband had a hell of a time getting her out of this "contract" because they wanted "their" phone back. There were others: someone claiming to represent the local fire department that she gave money to, yearly insurance on jewelry, and I'm sure many others that we never found out about. To believe that everyone should be smart and savvy and able to see through scams just means to me that you have led a narrow life.