The #1 reason this happens is that you're not copying the BEGIN and END lines correctly. They should look like this -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- -----END PGP MESSAGE----- With FIVE dashes before and after the text. Count the dashes. It may be that you're copying the lines completely, but the sender only pasted four dashes at the beginning or end. It's easy to miss a dash when highlighting. If there are not 5 dashes, you can add them manually. Then copy to clipboard. Let me know if that doesn't work.