Email Crooks and Thieves, Avoid being burned.
I have been teaching people about the dangers of fake spam emails for years.
Recently I found my well guarded and very private email started to get spammed badly.
Now when I say private, it is with Comcast so they certainly have not been the best company
fighting spam, but the last 2 years or so I found a huge improvement with thier spam blocking.
To the point where I was rarely getting a spammy email.
I don’t know what is going on now, but I’m very alarmed.
All my emails are now getting huge amount daily of spam. ( non Comcast too)
One email I would just like to alert you to, is a Hallmark Card email that is completely fake.
I knew it was fake because it did not have my name and it said something like “Dear Friend”.
Big tip here, if you get any email that asks for information from you and does not have your legitmate
account or real name as a greeting.
DO NOT CLICK ANYTHING in the email. Please.
I went straight to Hallmark and they had this to say on their website.
d Im very careful with email, but this one almost got me!
Watch out for this.
Is Hallmark sending spam E-Cards?
Fraudulent E-Card appears to be from Hallmark Answer:
A fraudulent e-mail currently circulating nationwide claims to have a link to an E-Card
from a family member, friend or neighbor and uses major greeting card
company names such as Hallmark.com.
Clicking on the link downloads a virus onto the recipient’s computer that compromises personal data.
Hallmark.com and Hallmark’s legal team are addressing the problem by contacting the Internet providers identified as the source of the spam requesting that they shut down the imposters. At the same time, the Hallmark.com team is looking at changing Hallmark’s E-Card notification and pickup procedures and developing proactive ways to better educate consumers about how to avoid E-Card abuse.
You can forward any suspicious e-mails to abuse@hallmark.com
Is it real?
There are several ways to tell if a Hallmark E-Card notification is real:
1. The subject line of legitimate E-Card notifications from Hallmark will say,
“A Hallmark E-Card from (name of the sender)” not a generic term like “friend,” “neighbor” or “family member.
2. The e-mail notification will come from the sender’s e-mail address, not Hallmark.com.
3. The notification will include a link to the E-Card on Hallmark.com as well as a URL that can be pasted into a browser.
4. The URL will begin with http://hallmark.com/ followed by characters that identify the individual E-Card.
Hover your mouse over the words “click here” in your e-mail.
If you do not see the URL above, it is not a legitimate Hallmark E-Card.
5. Hallmark E-Cards are not downloaded and they are not .exe files.
6. In addition, Hallmark.com will never require an
E-Card recipient to enter a user name or password nor any other personal information to retrieve an E-Card.
E-MAIL SAFETY TIPS
* Do not open e-mails from unknown senders.
* If you receive an attachment that you are not expecting, don’t open it, even if it’s from someone you know.
First read the e-mail, and make sure the attachment is most likely legitimate.
If you’re still not sure, call or e-mail the sender to confirm, but do not reply to the original e-mail.
* Don’t open an e-mail you know to be spam.
A code embedded in spam advertises that you opened the e-mail and confirms your address is valid.
* Some fraudulant e-mails that appear to be from financial companies (PayPal, banks, credit card companies, etc.)
direct the reader to click on a link to verify or confirm account details.
Never click these links.
Instead, call the company if you are concerned about your account
These tips from Hallmark apply to all email you may find suspicious.
Alert here to a new and alarming way to get spammed and ripped off.
Spam sent as a PDF file attachment.
This is how the crooks are able to get around all those wonderful spam
blockers your service provider and that you may have on your own machine.
I sell ebooks and many times they are send via email as a PDF file.
Businesses, schools, students, teachers and many others use PDF files all the time.
Once again the crooked spammers cause hassle, destruction and often stealing your money
or worse your identity!
This is so devious and makes me so mad. I hate spammers and crooks on the internet!
If you get any email from banks, Paypal, Amazon or any place that may have personal information about you,
and they ask you to “update” or login to verify your password or any personal information, please DO NOT click any links in that email.
All of those companies will NEVER ask you for that kind of information in an email.
If you have any doubt, ever, just go to your browser, ( hopefully you are using firefox for better safety)
and go to the main website of the email and check it out there.
These companies usually are already aware of the current scam being run that day about their company
and will have something on their website, or better yet, call them.
Whatever you are more comfortable with, just do anything but click links in emails!!!
THESE ARE CROOKS! Here are some recent statistics on what countries we are getting the spam from.
- The U.S. continues to relay more spam than any other nation accounting for 19.6% of global spam.
- Europe now has six entries in the Dirty Dozen, which when combined, account for even more spam-relaying than the U.S.
- The overall global volume of spam rose by 9% during the second quarter, when compared to the same period in 2006.
- After the U.S. and China, South Korea ranked third with 6.5%, followed by Poland with 4.8%, Germany 4.2%, Brazil 4.1%, France 3.3%, Russia 3.1%, Turkey 2.9%, the U.K. 2.8%, Italy 2.8% and India 2.5%.
What happens when I click a link in a fake email?
First let me tell you about the crooks.
They have set up a fake page that looks like the page of whatever business they have said they are.
This is not brain surgery, your teenager could do this.(hopefully they never will).
All this involves is a free hosting site and copying and pasting some real graphics and website building 101.
Then when you enter all your personal information, bingo they have you.
Whatever you gave them is now quickly used or sold to other crooks and thieves.
Linda, help me- I think I clicked a fake email link, what should I do?
Here is what you need to do, if you have fallen for this, you will need to do all the same
things you do when your wallet is stolen.
Im so sorry if this has happened to you, it is a terrible thing, but now you must do damage control.
Call all your credit cards and tell them what happened.
You should file a police report too, just to cover yourself in case someone assumes your identiy.
That can take years to untangle if the crooks start creating credit cards and ID’s with your social security
and other information they have gotten.
Here are some more good tips from Paypal
1. Be aware – spoofers often use fake email addresses that look like they’re from your bank, major retailers, and even PayPal to fool you into revealing your password and financial information.
2. Look out for any email that starts with something like “Dear PayPal user” or “valued customer,” instead of your name.
3. Be wary of emails asking you for personal information such as:
* Credit and debit card numbers
* Bank account numbers
* Driver’s license numbers
* Email addresses
* Passwords
* Your full name
4. Never give out your username or password on a site you’ve clicked through to from an email – especially if the email uses a false sense of urgency about your account being closed or your credit cards expiring.
5. Instead, if you doubt the authenticity of an email from a trusted vendor, simply open a new web browser, type in the URL by hand, and perform the requested activity.
6. Look closely at any email about updating your account, password, or credit card numbers. Spoofers use tricks like these to get you to respond. See an example of a spoof email.
7. Visit the PayPal Anti-Spoof page for more information.
Here are some helpful links for you to learn more and possibly get some help if you have been the victim of crooks and thieves online.
http://www.cyberlawenforcement.org/
is a network of law enforcement officers, who specialize in cybercrime investigation, training other law enforcement officers and who assist cybercrime victims online.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C)
http://www.ic3.gov/
Here are some useful links designed to help victims of identity theft. They might help you avoid becoming one as well.
United States:
Federal Trade Commission – Identity Theft: http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/
Privacy Rights Clearing House: http://www.privacyrights.org/identity.htm
US Department of Justice: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html
Canada:
Office of the Privacy Commissioner: http://www.privcom.gc.ca/fs-fi/02_05_d_10_e.asp
Canadian Credit Report: http://canadian-creditreport.com/identitytheft.htm
Canadian Privacy Law Blog: http://www.privacylawyer.ca/blog/2005/06/research-on-identity-theft.html
I hate be the bearer of bad news, but in the case of Cyber-crime, an ounce of prevention is your only hope.
Calling the police is almost useless. Here is why.
Law enforcement in general is just starting to realize the danger and threats to citizens
being ripped off in this manner.
In general they are just starting to get computer fraud staff who understand
the internet, and that usually is more geared toward sex crimes.
One of the problems is by the time you realize you have been ripped off, the trail is cold.
These crooks are hit and run.
The other main problem, is this crime is taking place across the world in places like
Russia and Nigeria and Belgium.
They send their bogus spam out, and if they get just a .5% of people
falling for it, they are successful.
The fake sites are rarely up for more then a few days.
They use free hosting and nothing that requires any kind of trail back to them.
This is like someone breaking into your car and stealing your wallet,
selling it to someone else and leaving the country in the same hour.
Only the police actually have a better chance of catching that guy!
Please be careful out there, people are uninformed and ill equipped to recognize and stop fraud online.
If you have any friends or parents that may not use the computer much, especially if they just use it for email, please send them this article or tell them about online fraud and fake emails.
Add comment December 31st, 2007