During the many years I’ve had this blog, spammers have never let up their attacks on people. So rather than looking all over my site, I’ve gathered a number of the posts about spam that I’ve written and hope you find them helpful and reassuring. And don’t let the bad guys win by giving up, email does a lot of good as well.
Since we’re in a cautious frame of mind here this week, how about some tips on fighting spam? While usually not dangerous to your computer (unless a virus is attached), excessive spam can be hazardous to your mental health. From the phishing emails that give you a heart attack when they say your accounts have been tampered with; to the ones that offer to reward you physically or financially if you listen to them – Spam is NOT nice. And it wastes a lot of time, sifting through the junk. So here are some ideas to help fight spam.
Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on the net. There are products called “spam spiders” that search the Internet for email addresses to send email to. (If you are interested, do a search on “spam spider” and you will be amazed at what you get back). You can keep your email address from being harvested by:
A) Use form emails, which can hide addresses.
B) Use a generic address like sales@yourcompany.com instead of your full address so all the junk will go to that address (The only problem with this tip is that the legitimate emails from potential clients also go there).
C) There are programs that encode your email address on web pages so that spam spiders find it difficult or impossible to read your email address.
D) The low tech way that I use: replace the @ sign with AT and the dot with the words DOT when posting your email address. Or add a couple of spaces after your @ symbol so that it doesn’t paste as a proper email address.
2. Get spam blocking software. There are many programs out there for this. The software is not foolproof, but it does help. You usually have to do some manual setup to block certain types of email.
3. Use the multiple email address approach. There are a lot of free email addresses to be had (my favourite is gmail). If you must subscribe to newsletters, then use this “back-up” email address. Give your proper email address only to friends and business associates.
4. Attachments from people you don’t know (and sometimes those you do) are BAD, BAD, BAD. A common problem with spam is that it may have an attachment, and attachments can have viruses. Corporations often have filters that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far more “open country” for spammers. General rule of thumb: if you don’t know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT. Secondly, do what I do and scan attachments from people you know with your anti-virus software before opening.
5. Email services now have “junk-mail” folders. The concept is simple. If you know someone (and they are on your list of allowed senders), they can send you email. If you don’t know them, they automatically go into your junk email pile. You can quickly go through this junk folder and then “choose” to allow some into your circle of friends. You can also set filtering rules for your inbox, so that email with certain words or from certain people (like that annoying co-worker who won’t stop sending you jokes) will go right into the junk folder.
Okay, there are my five spam fighting tips. How many can you add?
Spam Email Trick
Seems the spammers are continually coming up with new tricks to find out if they are sending emails to a real live person. Once they do that, they can continue to bombard you! So hopefully you never click a link on a phony email, even the ones on the bottom that say “if you don’t wish to receive any more emails, click here”. Unless you signed up in the first place (which is doubtful), they are just phishing to see if you’ll take the bait.
But the newest thing the spam artists have been trying with me is to request a receipt when I open the email. What that does is sends a reply to them saying you indeed got the email. The thing is that often the default on your email is set so that you don’t even know when your computer is sending one. So check your email options and make sure that you are notified every time someone requests a receipt.
Then when your email program tells you the sender would like notice of receipt, make sure you click “no” and the spammer will never know he almost caught you.
EBay Scam Email
My mother was quite upset the other day when she received an email from eBay saying that her account was suspended. It looked so official, she was sure it was real.
When I told her that I get those emails too and that she should go to the eBay site and sign in, then check her account, she would probably find everything was fine.
Sure enough, there were no problems with her account, but for an eighty-two year old lady, that kind of email was distressing.
Everyone will probably get a scam email sooner or later, so always go to the site to verify your account, never respond to a link on the email. They are just pfishing for your information.
PayPal Scams
I regularly get false emails from Paypal, telling me my account had a problem and I need to click the link and fix it. I know better than to pay attention to them, but the most recent one gave me a panic attack. It was a short email, just advising me that a new email address (and then a specific hotmail address was mentioned) had been added to my Paypal account.
Well, I’ve never logged into my Paypal account so fast. There was no extra email address listed and I breathed a sigh of relief. But instead of forgetting about it, I forwarded the false email to Paypal. Here is their response:
“Thanks for forwarding that suspicious-looking email. You’re right – it was a phishing attempt, and we’re working on stopping the fraud. By reporting the problem, you’ve made a difference!
Identity thieves try to trick you into revealing your password or other personal information through phishing emails and fake websites. To learn more about online safety, click “Security Center” on any PayPal webpage.
Every email counts. When you forward suspicious-looking emails to spoof@paypal.com, you help keep yourself and others safe from identity theft. Your account security is very important to us, so we appreciate your extra effort.”
It didn’t take me more than a minute to forward that email to Paypal. Maybe as a result, some of these crooks can be caught. I invite you to do the same and send any suspicious Paypal emails you receive to the address above. Together we can make the Internet a safer place.
Another email, supposedly from Paypal, said that my account had been charged for a Dell computer. The price was over $500 dollars and the supposed name and address of the person who received the shipment was also included.
A similar email came a few months ago, although not quite as detailed, so I was not too worried. Rather than click the link included in the email, which is what these scammers want you to do, I went to the Paypal website and signed in. My account had not been charged, but it was a reminder that I should probably check it on a regular basis, just in case.
Kijiji and Craigslist Scams
I read recently about a rental scam on Kijiji. Some disgruntled tenants advertised the fixtures in the home they were renting. The renters said that the house was being demolished and people could freely take what they needed before it was torn down. No one seemed to think it sounded too good to be true, so people came and stripped everything in the house. Sure, the renters were arrested, but imagine the damage that had to be repaired.
Also in our area, a local couple were taken for thousands when they bought a car sight unseen that was advertised on Craigslist . They were told that the car wasn’t available for viewing right away, but they were given all the particulars, including pictures and documents, so the couple thought it was a legitimate sale. They were even shown an eBay listing for the car. And since it was such a fabulous buy, the couple didn’t want to miss out, so they paid first and found out later that it was a scam.
I know, crooks seem to get smarter all the time and many of us seem to forget our brains as soon as we think we can save money. Repeat after me: if it sounds too good ………
Spam Email Links (Don’t Click)
I’ve been getting all kinds of welcome emails for various special interest membership sites. At first I thought maybe someone else was signing me up for them, but I was hesitant to click the link, just in case it was a virus.
Recently I found out that they are indeed spam and had I clicked the link, I would have been told that unless I saw the “lock” at the bottom of my browser, I would need to download and install their “security patch” to make sure my information would be kept confidential. Of course, if I had followed those instructions, someone else would now be able to access my computer.
Apparently, there is also a deadly email going out that claims to be from YouTube, claiming to have not-nice videos of you. The URL looks like it points to YouTube.com, but really links to a different site and when you get there and download the supposed video, your computer is infected with a Trojan virus. So be careful and don’t think this might just be a joke email from a friend.
I am at the point that I never click attachments in emails and am beginning to wonder if I should do the same with links. It’s a shame that some evil people have to ruin it for everyone.
Spam Greeting
Spammers will try anything to get you to either part with your personal information or open an attachment that could potentially contain a virus. For instance, the emails from someone described as a friend or a former classmate or relative who has sent me a greeting card. The actual name of the person is never mentioned and there is an attachment for me to open if I want to see the card and the name of its sender. I’ve made it a rule never to open attachments, but there are times my curiosity almost gets the better of me. Then I remember that curiosity killed the cat.
