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How To Spot Common Spam Scams

We've all received spam trying to sell us things such as prescription medications, cheap mortgages and internet gambling. Most people just hit delete and move on, but there are some scams that are a little more serious.

One of the most common ones has been around for many years - the Nigerian bank scam. The person sending the email pretends to be the wife, brother, lawyer, banker or have some other relationship with some kind of government official in Nigeria. They tell the sad story of money that was deposited in a bank account but can't be accessed because the person has died. They offer to give you a share of the wealth in return for accepting a transfer of the money to your bank account. The catch is, you need to give them your bank account information and transfer several thousand dollars to them first for "expenses". Naturally, you never see any of the money that is promised after sending the expense funds. It sounds obvious, but people fall for this scam year after year, even though it has been going on for so long.

Some Internet scams offer investment opportunities with huge paybacks. They usually claim to be risk-free, but once they have your money, you're very unlikely to see any return. Another common scam involves offering credit cards for those with bad credit ratings - just send a security deposit and processing fees. In return you get - that's right - nothing. And by the time you start to investigate, the scam artist has disappeared.

These fake offers are particularly bad for legitimate businesses who use email for doing business. Because so much email is spam, the internet service providers and email hosting companies work hard to filter it out. But these filters can sometimes stop legitimate email from businesses you want to hear from.

How To Avoid Getting Stung

Never reply to spam. Doing so simply indicates to the spammer that your e-mail address is valid, and you'll receive more spam than before. Some spam contains a message offering to remove your e-mail address from their mailing list. Don't use even this service - it's nothing but another method for verifying e-mail addresses.

And above all else, never give any private information like credit card numbers or bank account information via email. Companies like Paypal or your bank will never ask for your username and password in an email message.

Spam isn't an easy things to stop, but if you don't recognize the person sending you the message, and it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Besides, how many dead Nigerian dictators with huge bank accounts can there really be?

Article Source: http://www.ezarticles.info

Do you know how to fully protect yourself from email scams and other internet security threats? Learn how you can stop spam and other security attacks on the Online Security Toolkit website. Visit www.onlinesecuritytoolkit.com for more information.