I'm not spam, honest!

Many moons ago, pretty much before email, there was a sales technique doing the rounds whereby you would send your sales literature to prospective customers BUT attach a post-it note to the front with something like "Suggest you look at his. B" or "This looks like it could be of use to us! M" the idea being the recipient would fall for the subterfuge of the post-it note and think it was from one of their colleagues and hopefully actually read the damn thing. The latest email trend doing the rounds are a reincarnation of that, generally they're "Further to my email last week" which of-course you never had or the "I'm trying to find X person." ruse.

From: rob [mailto:rob@remote-backup.com]
Sent: 22 October 2015 22:43
To: Peter Cannon
Subject: Your Ahsay Online Backup software price is going up.

Hello, I’m sorry that I don’t have a correct email address for Steve Owen. Will you please forward this?

Ahsay, the company who makes your Online Backup software, has recently increased prices dramatically for their software and for Maintenance. As a result, a lot of Ahsay partners are calling us to switch vendors.

Or

From: John Black [mailto:johnb@dcbl.mhmx.co.uk] 

Sent: 22 October 2015 09:49

To: Peter Cannon

Subject: FW: High Court Enforcement...As seen on TV

Hello Dave,

Further to my email last week, do you have an unpaid County Court Judgment  (CCJ) or Order over £600 and want to be paid?