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Dear Beneficiary........

Hotmail still steadfastly seems to refuse to do anything about the scam emails that perpetuate through their email system. It would be so  simple to bar emails that include the tired old phrases "Dear beneficiary", "Friend in Christ", "Nigerian oil minister", "viagra", "PPI", "tax refund", "bank notification", "account suspension" and "lottery win", to name but a few of the phrases these wastrels use.

Just stop them even entering the system in the first place. So simple to even tag and reject the fake email addresses that these scammers use.

It is rather incredible that these emails continue to circulate. And more so, that, as users become ever more adept, incorporating emails into their daily lives as a matter of course, that they can be taken in by these scams. That the chief executive of a bank, or the continental representative of the FBI would use a free Yahoo account, let alone write to someone at random via Hotmail, is ridiculous, yet there presumably are people who are taken in, otherwise these vile scammers wouldn't bother.

The banks, dishonest as they may be and mistrust them as we do nowadays, in fairness, and Fred Shred and Bob Diamond aside, continually tell their customers that they will never email to ask for personal details.

So why don't Hotmail spend a few dollars of their huge Microsoft income and do something about it?

Surprisingly, scam emails originate from the USA, UK and Nigeria in that order. Microsoft is an American company. The UK is a large Microsoft market that sadly is happy to pay rip-off prices for their overpriced product updates.

So it's about time they exited the rose-tinted little rooms in their silicon valley hideaway and did something constructive for the consumer. Something that would take a techie possibly an hour and cost no more than $250.

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