For several months, fraudulent emails have been evading our multi-layer controls and many get into our mailboxes. They are almost all about health, they almost all fraudulently claim an association with one of the USA's large broadcasters and they all offer improbable treatments if people act fast. This example gives 12 hours.

Worse, they are often hosted by Google's own servers providing a false credibility. Read on for how the latest is targeting some of the most vulnerable people in our society and their desperate families.

Spoofing (i.e. faking) email addresses is one of the internet criminals oldest trick. The second oldest is attaching a credible name to a functioning email account such as gmail, yahoo, yandex: we warned of this in the 1990s and it's still happening. A later version used facebookmail. We've not seen that for a while but like a bad smell, it's back... Below is the email that we received and almost thought was genuine .... than eventually we realised it probably is. 

Confused? You will be.

The thing is that FB does send out similar mails. The proof is at the bottom of the mail. If it's sent to the same email address as you have PRIVATELY registered with Facebook as your security address, then the chances are it's real, always assuming that you don't use the same email address for everything. 

It is perfectly possible that a third party has been trying to access this account and has asked for an authorisation number. 

But equally, we have to be suspicious because the body of the email contains so many errors. 

We have every sympathy with someone who is tricked by a subtle and convincing approach by a fraudster. These are the vast majority of cases. 

But in this case, anyone who falls for this trick is so stupid that we can't see them as victims, only as a willing, on at least some level, author of their own misfortunes. 

The fraud is so obvious that it kind of slaps the target in the face.  As often, it starts with an email. And even a sliver of common sense shows that it's a blatant attempt to defraud just by reading the headline.

We have a very strange story to recount. And it started us questioning something.  It all started with an email that arrived today. It is completely credible about some software we once installed, then abandoned. 

It is remarkable just how stupid some fraudsters are.

In this case, aided by Yanex, an old foe which, like Google and Microsoft, provide anonymous collection addresses to whcih victims can write, the fraudster hasn't even noticed a notice about permitted use of his software which proves at the outset that he can't be trusted. The full mail is below.

It's amazing how utterly stupid most fraudsters think we are. Or perhaps I'm just lucky, says Nigel Morris-Cotterill.

This is so new we can't confirm whether the "from" address is widely used or individual mails are sampling it, nor can we confirm that the domain is, or is not, part of the fraud. nesopay.dm@sailmail.net

We can say that the message "Neso Super Stablecoin on WhatsApp: The first 100 users!" has everything that screams "fraud" and nothing that doesn't. We have removed or invalidated all the links for your protection.

Some of the most odious frauds are those that raise hopes and dash them again. Look, we all know that Bill Gates makes all kinds of oddball statements and that he's set himself up as a global expert on a wide range of subjects, one of which is health. So, he's an easy "hook" to use to get people to read about fraudulent health products. 

Of course, the simplest thing would be to say "he's the man who ran a software company" and not listen to anything else attributed to him, but when there's the promise of addressing one of the most horrible health problems, it's normal to want to know. 

So, here's the guide: if you get an email from someone you don't know telling you that someone famous is backing a product or company and you should jump in to get the most benefit it's a lie. It's always a lie. You will lose your money and, worse, you will be disappointed. 

Remember: first approaches matter and every fraud starts with "hello"

Persistent and Voluminous: the recent mailbombing that preys on uncertainty by small businesses and individuals screams that your data storage is reaching capacity or that an account is expiring. See the examples below: they are ALL fraudulent. 

These are just a handful of the many that defeated our multi-level filters and made it into one mailbox. 

We had other mailboxes bombed with similar attacks. 

All in a period of about three days. 

The internet is designed to facilitate fraud. That wasn't its original proposition but as it has developed, that's been the inevitable result.

And the most common use of the internet is communication. Everything from email, to webforms to WhatsApp and FaceBook Messenger, Telegram and all social media is about communication and, importantly, about generating responses. 

It's more than 30 years since the internet, in the form of e-mail and services such as CompuServe and American On Line, reached ordinary people doing ordinary things. And yet, one of the very first fraud techniques remains common. And it's successful. And it works because ordinary people use it in ways that are not fraudulent but are, at least, devious. 

It all starts with someone getting hold of your email address. And then lying to you so they or someone else benefits from that lie. 

In the latest of the "we know you've lost money and we can help you get it back" frauds, an email purporting to be from an official source in the South African government is particularly cruel as it targets those who have already lost money. See the email below and never, ever, respond to any similar mail. 

As a detective, I’ve seen a lot of scams. But this one....

I had to stop and admire how creative it was, says Blair Joynson

This very unsophisticated phishing attempt has arrived today. It pretends to be from Uphold, a cryptocurrency website. 

It isn't. If you get this message or something like it, don't respond, don't call the number. If you have ever had an uphold account, log in and change the password. Or close the account. 

It's a flashy HTML mail increase the risk to you. We used one of their tricks to insert the logo above so show you how easy it is.   Below is the text content. 

Email that looks like webpages are tailor-made to show you one thing but to do something else. That's how fraud works.

It's remarkable how dimwitted fraudsters think we are.

As the UK's Companies House implements measures to reduce fraudulent registration of companies, fraudsters are piggybacking on the awareness campaign.

Basic truth : no legitimate financial services business would collect replies in gmail. So don't reply to anything like this.

This spam scam is interesting because it ticks multiple boxes designed to suck you in. 

This is a variation on a well worn theme, the one that started with the African Prince style advance fee fraud.

One of our staff receives persistent fraudulent spam from multiple fake email addresses, all headed the same: "Invitation to participate" and all in broadly the same terms: a major corporation Sime Darby, wants her company to submit corporate information and to apply to take part in unspecified projects. 

Total fraud but it's amusing because there is absolutely no way that Gina Rinehart would write in such terms. Nor that she would be using gmail.  It's simply the wrong kind of "prospecting!