How would you respond??? Scam or genuine request for help???

[Hanif]

Hi folks,

A strange email from a user who is based here, just wondering if others got it as well???

What are your thoughts on something like this???

This is the message:

Dear Sir/Madam,
We are a small group of mums and dads that live in a country area here in Australia.
We all have children that suffer from various degrees of Visual Impairment.
Unfortunately because we live in a remote area well away from all the services availabe in our cities for these handicapped children we have decided to get together and build a website where these children and adults can contact each other and talk about their issues,make friends,chat and if possible have some doctors or medical practitioners support the site and post the latest medical advances in the various fields that these people suffer from.
We have been searching the internet looking for various scripts that we need to make our website for these people.
We came across this forum that had a Address Book Import script.We need a copy of this type of script for our site so our programmer can install and integrate it as he builds our templates.We are making this project from scratch out of our own money and we cannot afford to pay the prices that they want for this type of software program so we were hoping that you may be kind enough to donate a copy of this script for our personal use only on our website.With this script our handicapped members will be able to invite their other handicapped friends to join the site and benefit from the sites features and the friendships that they will make from other children in the same situation as they are in.
These country children live a very lonely life and some contact with the outside world in an environment that they know and can trust Would benefit them dearly.
Please consider our heartfelt requests here and email us back with your decision.

Regards
XXX

[mholtum]

I would snicker, and respond, "Blow Me!" But that is me, I grow more cynical as time goes one.

[Corriewf]

I would reply, " I will send you a copy of vbulletin as soon as they come out with monitors with brail (sp)".... Kind of hard for a blind child to uhhh surf the web...

[KTBleeding]

Who emails someone asking for something? Donations should never ever be asked for, IMO..

[Aesma Deva]

Originally Posted by mholtum

I would snicker, and respond, "Blow Me!" But that is me, I grow more cynical as time goes one.

<3
If you can't buy forum software, you could also get these... how are they called... Oh, yes. Free forum softwares.
After all, since they know you have to pay for VB and everything, they should also know it's illegal to use it without a permission.

Originally Posted by VB.com License Agreement

The Software is licensed only to you. You may not rent, lease, sublicence, sell, assign, pledge, transfer or otherwise dispose of the Software in any form, on a temporary or permanent basis, without the prior written consent of Jelsoft.

Etc. etc..

[RichieBoy67]

I would say if it is real a donation wouldn't freagin kill anyone... I would ask for the domain etc....

Many blind people use computers... I know because my aunt is blind. She has an audio system that is amazing... she can actually surf the net...

I'd be the first person to donate if I could........

[KW802]

The cynic in me says it's a scam, that by trying to make the request seem like a heartfelt gesture of giving that you'd be more prone to go along with it.

On the other hand... if they provided any contact information I would try to follow up to verify the story. Afterall, if it was a legit group there would be some type of contact information that would be able to be shared in the public. I'd start with the basics... have they even purchased vB yet and if so under what account?

[Freak0204]

Look at the message source to see what the sender's email address/domain is. It's usually obvious just by looking at that if it's legit or not.

We have been searching the internet looking for various scripts that we need to make our website for these people.

However, if this were true, I would think they'd be looking for professional help instead of emailing random people for "donations."

[Code Monkey]

Respond and they will confrim your email as valid for sale on a spam list. Don't be suckers, you just encourage them.

[EricaJoy]

I got the same thing. I'll pass.