Can you choose a questionable email?

Millions of scams are sent via email every day. How do you recognize them so as not to waste time? Here are some schemes specially designed to persuade you to part with your personally identifiable information or your money.

Domain Name Renewals

Many domain name owners receive what appears to be an invoice for their domain name renewal at several times the normal price and three months prior to the renewal date. These are not invoices. They are offered to renew the name through another company. Sometimes they may be to register a name slightly different from yours. Compare the prices with your current registrar and you will see that they are scams.

Domain name registrations in foreign countries

Domain name owners are currently receiving offers to register their name with a foreign country extension, with a history that someone else has applied for that name. So what? Only if you want it to appear to be located in that country would you want to register a name there. Find out what your current registrar charges.

world directories

Every year, companies receive what appear to be bills for a listing in some worldwide directory. These are not invoices. They are offered to list it. Unfortunately, some companies pay them. If you’ve never seen a copy of such a directory, how do you know it was ever published? If there is a website, see if someone you know is on the list.

who’s who directories

We were once flattered with a nomination for inclusion in a Who’s Who. However, another contact from that organization requested a large fee for listing on the directory. Our answer is that if someone wants to include us in a Who’s Who, they can pay.

Offers to work from home

Everyone gets get-rich-quick offers for working just a few hours a week. Of course, personal identification data is requested from you. Many of these offers are to facilitate money laundering through your bank account. If you want to work from home, decide the type of business you want to work in. Find it or start it yourself. If it’s good, you shouldn’t wait for it to find you.

surveys

You are congratulated on the chance to win something from a wide range of prizes if you agree to complete a few surveys. Why do they need your personally identifiable information? So they can steal your identity and use your bank account, of course.

promotional prizes

We fell in love once and agreed to accept a promotional award from a well-known department store. They did not ask for our personal information, just our name and email address. No prizes came, but hundreds of promotional offers from other big companies that now had our email address.

lottery prizes

You receive a notice that you won a big prize in a lottery you never entered. To claim the prize, you must pay a fee and provide certain personally identifiable information. Of course! It’s another scheme to steal your money.

miracle cures

A survey identifies that you have a certain medical condition that can only be cured if you buy a certain drug from a certain website. This is the only place in the whole world where you can get the medicine. Of course it’s a miracle cure, but there are no guarantees!

bank account spoofing

You are asked to go to a screen and update your personal bank details, otherwise your bank will freeze your account. If you pass the mouse over the link you will see that it does not go to your bank, or to any bank. You will go to a website where you can reveal your identity so they can steal your bank account. Most real banks advise that they never ask customers to log in via email.

nigerian letters

This generic heading covers letters from anywhere in the world with the common theme that a part of a large sum of money, which the sender wishes to secretly smuggle out of a country, is offered to the recipient in exchange for some personal identity information and the payment of some fees.

These came to the attention of the authorities in the 1960s when letters produced on old typewriters were received from Nigeria. The reasons for the offers differed and were quite creative, but the method was always the same.

Amazingly, these schemes caught a number of gullible people then and have continued to catch people for almost fifty years, now via email. Every day a potential victim is born.

What is common to all scams?

Scams are designed to appeal to some human trait: greed, fear, ego, etc. Scams have always existed. The Internet simply allows them to reach more people faster.

Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is! Use common sense. Get independent advice. Only give your personal identity or credit card information to people you know and trust.

The scams will continue as long as there are naive people.

Our web server has a good spam filter on its email server that filters out all of the scam categories we identify. We frequently add to that filter as scammers rephrase their emails. But the number of scams that get past our filter is dwindling.

Be alert, recognize scams, and save time by filtering them out before they reach you.

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