Email Spam Letters
Everyone gets the spam emails – someone trying to give you a cheap mortgage rate, sell you some wonder diet drug, or entice you to join their new poker site. Most of these are known as spam scams and all these places really wish to do is rip you off.
One of the best-known spam scams is the Nigerian Bank scam. The person who originates the email introduces himself or herself as the wife or relative of a former dictator or some other government official. They go on to a sad story about how there were millions of dollars deposited in a bank account, which they cannot get. But, if you help them, they will be more than glad to give you a percentage of the funds. The catch is they need you to transfer some money from your bank account for “expenses.” Although this sounds like a scam, many people fall for it each year. One elderly man from the Czech Republic lost his entire savings to such a scam.
There are other spam scams on the Internet that offer you investment opportunities. They will say they are risk-free, but just remember – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. All you will see is your hard earned money leave your bank account – never to return. These scam artists are rarely caught because as soon as the money is transferred, they are gone.
Multilevel marketing schemes, known as MLMs, recommends that you buy a large quantity of a product, which you can then resell at a large profit. And you also receive a commission if you get others to purchase and sell the product as well. The problem is many times the distributor disappears after you pay, but before you receive the product.
Legitimate businesses don’t fill your email account with spam. If you have visited their web page, you may have signed up to receive emails, but any other “special” offers by companies should be avoided. Even by deleting the email, you may be notifying the spammer that your email address is valid and therefore they will send more spam. See the “Fighting Spam” section to learn more about this.
Don’t reply to spam – this only lets them know you got the email, so they can continue to send you more. And, replying does no good as the email address it was sent from is often invalid. Also, don’t use the option to remove your email from their mailing list. This won’t work, but will still verify your email address for them.
Most importantly, never give anyone your credit card number, bank account information, or any other type of private data unless you are absolutely certain you know they are legitimate. Companies like PayPal or AOL will never ask for your password – that is just another spammers way of getting your personal information. Even though the email looks official, don’t fall for this scam.
Sometimes it is hard distinguishing spam from real emails. Email spam filtering software is one way to keep spam out of your email box. One good rule to follow is if you don’t recognize the email from which the message is sent, just delete it.
December 28th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
[...] Do you remember when people had to communicate by phone, letters, or faxes? Many of us were alive before email was popular, but it is hard to believe we survived for so long without it! It is the major mode of communication today whether at work or at home. It is also one of the most common ways for hackers to defraud people and send viruses. It is necessary to protect yourself if you use email at all. [...]