I just received this bizarrely short email:

I have a project for you.

Since the message body is just one line and header is not really long, I’d just post the entire original email with any masking because I am 99.999% certain this is a scam:

Delivered-To: livibetter@gmail.com
Received: by 10.50.134.71 with SMTP id pi7csp19596igb;
        Mon, 30 Jun 2014 04:40:27 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 10.68.245.100 with SMTP id xn4mr51055208pbc.152.1404128427218;
        Mon, 30 Jun 2014 04:40:27 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <eddison@clear.net.nz>
Received: from smtp4.clear.net.nz (smtp4.clear.net.nz. [203.97.37.64])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id mj4si22889516pab.19.2014.06.30.04.40.24
        for <multiple recipients>;
        Mon, 30 Jun 2014 04:40:27 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of eddison@clear.net.nz designates 203.97.37.64 as permitted sender) client-ip=203.97.37.64;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
       spf=pass (google.com: domain of eddison@clear.net.nz designates 203.97.37.64 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=eddison@clear.net.nz
Received: from mxin1-orange.clear.net.nz
 (lb2-srcnat.clear.net.nz [203.97.32.237])
 by smtp4.clear.net.nz (CLEAR Net Mail)
 with ESMTP id <0N7Z00H9LCF7ZR00@smtp4.clear.net.nz>; Mon,
 30 Jun 2014 23:40:23 +1200 (NZST)
Received: from lb2-srcnat.clear.net.nz (HELO clear.net.nz) ([203.97.32.237])
 by smtpin1.clear.net.nz with SMTP; Mon, 30 Jun 2014 23:40:22 +1200
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 23:40:22 +1200
From: michael.hughess@outlook.com
Subject: Hi
Sender: eddison@clear.net.nz
To: mrmichaelhughes4@gmail.com
Reply-to: michael.hughess@outlook.com
Message-id: <53b14ca6.397.477b.5692@clear.net.nz>
X-Mailer: CLEAR Net WebMail; webmail.clear.net.nz; user: eddison; ip:
 203.97.32.237
Priority: normal



I have a project for you.

Thanks for my nearly two decades of expert experience on spotting emails like this, I was not even tempted to shoot back an email for discussion. After I read oddly three email addresses and two names, I laughed:

Return-Path: <eddison@clear.net.nz>
From: michael.hughess@outlook.com
To: mrmichaelhughes4@gmail.com

I know can call it out, it’s highly unlikely this is legit. Yes, Eddison could be middle name, but having “hughess” seems very strange to me. These were just sounding alarms to my ears.

And, of course, I googled the words with “spam,” the results told me I called it correctly. This kind of phishing has been going on for some time.

Oh, yes, Gmail marked it as Important.