I think I receive every piece of trash in my inbox everyday. This includes the goofy campaign, ageist or for, the upcoming president election. I also get the “I don’t know what” stuff from the AOL users. I say I don’t know what because I never go to the trouble of opening 6 or 7 attachments that lead me to the original email. I just wonder if they know what they are putting the intended reader through that uses a real ISP. Oh yes I get the story about this poor old lady in Africa that will share a percentage of the $127,000,000 with me. All I have to do to help her is to give her my banking information, including the pin numbers, password, and oh yaw my mothers maiden name. She will transfer the money into my account and just for being so nice I can keep $10,000,000. Do you think people really do this ? I guess they do as I keep getting this type of email.
The new deal on the block is the “Spoof” sometimes known as "phished". These are sent in an attempt to collect sensitive personal or financial information from the recipients. They appear to come from legitimate companies that you may have done business with. The most popular ones are eBay, PayPal, and American State Bank. These emails look very real and they will have the logo from the company included. They will have a link for you to click on that will lead you to their bogus page. Never Ever click the link.
If you receive a Spoof, just click forward and send it to
spoof@companyname.comThe company will most likely reply with a thank you and some good advice. Here is a reply I received from eBay:
Hello,Thank you for writing to eBay regarding the email you received.Emails such as this, commonly referred to as "spoof" or "phished" messages, are sent in an attempt to collect sensitive personal or financial information from the recipients. The email you reported was not sent by eBay. We have reported this emailto the appropriate authorities. In the future, be very cautious of any email that asks you to submit information such as your credit card number or your email password. eBaywill never ask you for sensitive personal information such as passwords,bank account or credit card numbers, Personal Identification Numbers (PINs), or Social Security Numbers in an email. If you ever need to provide sensitive information to us, please open a new Web browser, type
www.ebay.com into your browser address field, and click on the "site map" link located at the top the page to access the eBay page you need.If you have any doubt about whether an email message is from eBay, please forward it immediately to
spoof@ebay.com. Do not respond to it orclick any of the links. Do not remove the original subject line or change the email in any way when you forward it to us. If you have already entered sensitive financial information or your password into a Web site based on a request from a spoofed email, you should take immediate action to protect your identity and all of your online accounts. We have developed an eBay Help page with valuable information regarding the steps you should take to protect yourself.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/isgw-account-theft-reporting.htmlTo review eBay's new tutorial about Spoof Emails, please see the following Web page:
http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial/Once again, thank you for alerting us to the spoof email you received. Your efforts help us ensure that eBay remains a safe and vibrant online marketplace.Regards, IaneBay SafeHarborInvestigations Team______________________________eBayYour Personal Trading Community (tm)*******************************************Important: eBay will not ask you for sensitive personal information (such as your password, credit card and bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, etc.) in an email. Learn more account protection tips at:
http://www.pages.ebay.com/help/account_protection.html