Five messages to never trust in your e-mail box

My 70-year-old father needed this article a week ago

I wish my dad could have read this a week ago. Last week he fell victim to some email claiming to have his bank account information. He BELIEVED the email that claimed somebody in another country had accessed all his bank information and stolen it off of his computer. Apparently the email also included "instructions" on how to download a "free program" that would fix it. Instead of calling me, he panicked, clicked on the link, and it downloaded and installed some virus that basically wiped out his hard drive. He then called Verizon (his ISP) who informed him that his computer was ruined and that he needed to "destroy" it because it somehow still had sensitive information on it. So he did. (I wasn't able to get the details from him on what this "destroying" meant.) And then, still frightened, my dad called his bank and had all his accounts closed and new accounts opened. Now he has to contact all his utilities and everything set up for recurring billing with the new information, all while he waits for his new debit card to come ("5-10 business days"), etc. In the end, it was a disaster -- AND he's now without a computer and can't afford a new one!

If he had simply called me before opening the email, I could have stopped him and none of this would have occurred.

Great article!

My favorite

My all time favorite email is the hot princess who's father is persecuting her or is a king that's being overthrown. They need to use your account to hold their vast fortunes until they can flee the country. She's always cute and always in Africa for some reason. It's like "Pretty Woman pt2: guy in trailer home and hot nubian queen"

HAving had the same email

HAving had the same email address for 9 years now, I too, get a ton of spam- now I let Gmail deal with it.
A couple of comments though- the emails where the trojan/bot/whatever isn't configured correctly are priceless- dear{*&^%name} or somesuch.
I must admit though- as I page through the spam (and every now and then get a real email that was caught)- I find myself scanning the headings..... yeah- ed drugs, diet drugs, western union million dollar transfer... hang on- a $2,000 Lowes gift card? Heck, I can use one of those.....

Then my brain kicks in to gear :).

I dont open email from ANYONE

I dont even open most emails from friends. The only time I open an email is when I join a forum and it needs to verify me.

The most common I receive

The most common spam I receive say they come from guys at some country (most commonly Iraq but also the UK) saying they want to move several millions (Saddam Huseins' money for example) out of the country. They ask to contact them with your account number (to do the transaction) and personal information ... What a joke!

Funny

Firefox reported: Firefox prevented this site from opening 2 popup windows

Talk about spam, idiocy, and the like. Popups should be banned.

Absolutly correct.

In fact it is not "Legal" to inform anyone of anything legal through the email system. For one it is unreliable and unpredictable and can be altered to say anything. This is why all notices go through the US Mail (guaranteed and can be proved) or served directly (can be subpoenaed in court as to the delivery.) So nothing will be sent to you via email conserning anything of importance. First in case of urgency they will call you, and ask you verify their number and call them back asking for a specific department or person, then request information to verify your identity (cross verification.)

PayPal *does* do it...

You think that with PayPal being one of the major targets of targeting phishing, they wouldn't send you e-mails saying "your account has been suspended, click here to login and find out more" and yet this is exactly what I got from them a couple of months ago.

For some reason they decided it would be appropriate to randomly freeze my account until I provided further identification such as passport, drivers licence and utility bills (!!!).

For the first 10 seconds I was looking at the message, I assumed it was spam - but then I noticed some things that made it seem legit:

1. It was sent to the email account I use(d) for PayPal.
   
2. It had some of my personal information from the account that a spammer wouldn't know from just my e-mail address.
   

So I opened up my browser, typed in paypal.com and logged in, and well what do you know, my account *is* frozen until I provide further identification. I further verified this through several (heated) phone conversations.

Needless to say, I no longer use PayPal. I refuse to provide so much personal information just because they want to see it when I've been happily using PayPal for 3 years previously.

I'm off topic a bit there, but you think they could have at least given me a phone call or postal mail letter to alert me instead of sending me a message that looks like 100's of other spam messages. Shame on PayPal.

Simple..

Most phishing relies on greed... though the bank account scams are deplorable..
Bottom line, dont bank online, no rel need to.. I get mail regular stating that my bank this or my bank that ... really ?! I don't even bank online so safe that way.

use gmail, the spam filters are very good.

2 spam arrived into my actual inbox in just over 1 year ...

plenty in the spam folder.

cheers

Reprint for my staff allowed?

Excellent article, TYVM.

May I (we) repurpose this article for our employees? We would not make this public or place your content on the web, but I would like to post a copy of this on our employee bulletin board.

Is that permitted?
We will, of course, provide attribution to the author and your web site.

Mr. Rosengarten