Good advice Adrian.
An ISP or a service like Hotmail will NEVER call you and ask for personal information. These phishers are looking to get into your web mail accounts so they can turn them into mass spamming tools. Somtimes they are used to spam further phishing emails, similar to the call she got, or to send illicit advertisement or spam in general. Worst case is that it is used to mass mail as part of a over simplistic denial of service attack on someone/something.

Depending on your ISP's rules and it's ability to watch it's traffic, your entire Internet account could get locked down when they identify you as a mass spammer. They have to do this to protect their entire network from being being blocked as a big spamming network. Usually a call in to their help desks can help you get your web-mail back in your control and you might also have to prove your PC(s) have not been infected with a spamming virus as well.

And your right, this sort of thing is way too common right now. It's a world wide issue.

Ah, good one, Fred!

(local news)Lol, I just got back from my bikeride down in the ravine along the Etobicoke Creek, I had to keep stopping....there's loads of tiny, baby snapping turtles(about 1" shell) along the path. Every few feet I kept picking them up and moving them off to the side so nobody would step or ride over them. I guess they're enjoying the fall sunshine for now. You could put about 9-10 of the little critters in your hand, and there'd still be room left for more, lol.

In the news
First snowfall of the year

I heard we might get flurries this weekend, that is crazy. I want to enjoy the Fall first.....arggggg

We're still a few days away from snow flurries, it's been in the mid 90's all week so far ... the no-driving, arrogant, old-ass, cheap, constantly bitching and complaining etc, etc... nice older snowbirds are in the midst of their migration south, maybe they'll bring some cooler weather.

Better get the sweater out, Rick. You must be getting chilly .

I got an e-mail from a friend. It said "Help, I am stuck in England with no money". It went on to describe how she got into this predicament. Her bag was left in a cab - etc. etc. The problem was the English and grammar were not right. So.. I did not reply to the e-mail, I sent one separately asking her if she was really stuck in England. I got a reply in the same questionable English/grammar that went into even more sad detail about the situation.
So I called her and when she answered, I said "thank god you are back safe and sound". She immediately asked if I had gotten an e-mail. Her account had been hacked into and the hacker was sending e-mails pleading for money to everyone in her address book. She suspected that the hacker was in Africa because of some back tracing that the ISP did. It took several phone calls to the ISP to convince them that she had been victimized and was a huge headache for her. So......Beware is a good watch word.

Thanks for the reminder. I actually just decided it was time to re-change my email password.

My wife got an email from one of her friends saying she was having a party and was sending out invitations. The email asked for our address, which was not suspicious. My wife provided the house and street number. When a reply came asking for the city and state, as well, we know something fishy was going on. My wife called the friend to let her know her email account had been compromised.