Dodgy emails and spam
Brian Morgan sent me this interesting email, following on from his
comments at our Computer Club meeting last week ....
"Thinking of the brief discussion about FWDs last week, perhaps there
is room for more thought in the Group. Could you include this as a blog
for folks to chunter over?
EASY MONEY JOBS. Passing on a tip from my bank on those
phoney jobs and cash transactions.
The jobs are almost NEVER there. The JOBS messages usually feature
easy money and invariably ask for your personal details including your
bank account. NEVER RESPOND UNLESS YOU CAN CHECK THEM OUT IN
DETAIL.
Cash transfers. These are all phoney and mostly illegal involving
money laundering, which is an offence. Should you be silly enough to
engage with these people and you lose money to them YOU ARE NOT
COVERED BY YOUR BANK AGAINST ANY SUCH LOSS. My bank will
close the account and ban you as a customer! So apart from aiding
criminal gangs and losing money, you will also lose your ability to
have a bank account. OUCH!
These decidedly dodgy emails are cousins to that other menace - SPAM.
Most spams have the specific task of identifying real email addresses
that they can exploit. So don't open them or respond to any spams, let
your system deal with them and delete them in due course. If you open
them there is a real risk to your system, especially if your anti-virus
system is not up to date.
FWD messages are spams which you may may the mistake of
responding to.
No matter how worthy they seem resist every temptaion to open them or
send them on! FIRST - YOU SHOULD NOT PASS ON YOUR CONTACTS'
ADDRESSES TO ANY PASSING FWD MESSAGE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.
You will be exposing them as well as yourself to more spams and
potential risk.
AND you are adding to your own spam problem! Among all those names is
each clutch of FWD names is a name that is harvesting email addresses,
either for spam creation or for a nefarious purpose. Think about it;
how can you possibly know if every address on that email with one or
more FWD is legit?
You cannot possibly know that so you really putting yourself and all
your contacts at risk or inconvenience. You cannot save the world by
passing on the FWD spams/chain letters but you can save many people
much trouble if you simply delete it on sight!
A simple rule is "if you don't recognise it, delete it, unopened!" And
watch the number of spams you get decrease to a quite small number.
Cheers,
Brian Morgan"
