I received a suspicious email at my New Leaf Journal email address. The emailer claimed to have received an email from an @thenewleafjournal.ai address asking him, her, or it to complete a Google Form to participate in a “bitcoin giveaway.” The emailer states that he, she, or it then searched the address and came across our site. The emailer suggested that our site “seems legit” (thanks, I guess), but then complained that this was the first time he, she, or it received the email, and that he, she, or it decided that sending me an email was absolutely necessary. The subject-header, I might add, asks me if I recognize thenewleafjournal as your colleague. Now I will note that while this likely-scam email implies that I am part of a bitcoin marketing scam, the sender address includes “marketing” as one of three words in the domain.
I declined to respond for the same reasons that I declined to respond to a Chinese domain name scam email a few months ago: I was not born yesterday. However, out of curiosity, I decided to check whether anyone actually owns thenewleafjournal.ai domain name. I checked Namecheap and discovered (unsurprisingly) that no one owns that domain name. What a shock.
Let me conclude with a bit of advice. Separate and apart from the fact that the email I received is a scam, if you ever receive an unsolicited email with a link (to Google Forms or otherwise), please do not click the link. Rest assured that there is no need to ask me whether you should click the link. You should not click the link.
(Moreover, if you do not want me to think your email is a scam, do not use an address with the word “marketing” in it and do not make it sound like a scam.)