Email Scams & Handling Spammail

Email scams occur by their hundreds of thousands. All email scams have two purposes;

1. To make sure your email address is actually used;When you open an email a message is returned to the sender that tells them you have read the email.This information is valuable to email spammers because anactive email address can be resold to other email spammers.

2. You will frequently be receiving emails that vary from;You have won a lottery - provide all your personal details to claim your prize.(whatever happens - do not give you personal information).You bank, or any other bank wants to verify your account so you can accept a deposit(you aren’t expecting one are you? Not like this, for sure)

3. It goes on and on and…

Here’s what you do; in your webmail browser (gmail, hotmail, whatever) hover your mouse over the “name” of the sender and you’ll see a pop up that tells you the real email address.

DO NOT OPEN THE MAIL!

(THIS IS IMPORTANT)

Only when you know that you recognise the actual email address of the sender open the mail. If you do not recognise the sender and you want to get rid of the email;

DO NOT DELETE THE EMAIL!

MARK IT AS JUNK MAIL, MOVE IT TO JUNK MAIL,

NEVER, EMPTY YOU JUNK MAIL FOLDER,

JUNK MAIL EXPIRES & DISAPPEARS.

If you “empty” your junkmail folder a message that you have not read the mail is sent to the sender. Again, they know your email address is active (in use).

In MS Outlook point at the sender email address and right click, choose “open outlook properties” and see the full details of the email address. This is true even if they try to mask the real email address.

In Outlook you can right click on the “Junk E-Mail” folder and select Empty Folder then Yes.

DO NOT DELETE EMAIL FROM THIS FOLDER,

ONLY EVER USE THE EMPTY FOLDER OPTION,

DO NOT DELETE EMAIL FROM THE JUNK MAIL FOLDER.

Remember that email spammers and email scammers are very sophisticated. You really have to be careful to protect yourself.