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Miller Smiles publicises detailed information about hundreds of thousands of spoof and phishing e-mails. You can use Miller Smiles' Scam Alert Service to check if a dodgy looking e-mail you have received is a scam indeed and report any spoof e-mail you may have received. The latest fraudulent spoof e-mails appear below.
Although the Stop Junk Mail campaign is mainly here to help you get rid of paper junk mail, we cannot ignore the fact that unscrupulous marketeers are increasingly using e-mail as a tool for sending junk mail. In fact, it is estimated that 95 per cent of all e-mails are now unsolicited advertisements, or 'spam'.
Many junk e-mails are so-called 'spoof' or 'phishing' e-mails aiming to drain your bank account. Unfortunately, little action is being taken against the criminals sending out these e-mails in their millions. It is mainly up to us, the public, to take action. Here is what you can do to reduce spam and to fight back against the scammers who clog up the internet with their fraudulent e-mails.
If you reply to a junk e-mail you are basically telling the sender that your e-mail address exists and that you read unsolicited mail. Your address will be added to numerous e-mail lists, resulting in more unsolicited e-mails.
Sometimes a junk e-mail will say that you can unsubscribe from receiving further e-mails by replying to it. Never do this if you have not subscribed to receiving the e-mails in the first place; your e-mail will only be used to send you more spam.
Posting your e-mail address on a forum, newsgroup or chat room is asking for junk mail. Little pieces of software called 'address harvesters' will pick up your e-mail address and add it to a countless number of junk mail lists.
If you do really want to make your e-mail address public, write it in such a way that 'robots' can't understand it. For instance, instead of me@a-website.com write me at a-website dot com. Humans will understand this, but most robots will not recognise it as an e-mail address.
Every time you give out your e-mail address you risk being added to junk mail lists. It makes sense therefore to set up a second e-mail account for buying things online and registering with online services. That way you can then keep your primary e-mail address for e-mails to and from friends and family only.
You will have to check the second e-mail account only once in a while, for instance to confirm that you do want to register with a social networking website or to empty the 'junk mail' folder.
It is good 'netiquette' never to forward chain e-mails. To some people it will come as a surprise, but many people hate getting junk e-mails. No matter how funny, cute or inspiring an e-mail might be, many people just don't like having an in-box littered with the latest jokes and hoaxes.
Apart from being annoying, forwarding a chain e-mail will make the e-mail addresses of all recipients visible to anyone, including spammers and other cyber criminals.
For the superstitious, chain e-mails cannot bring you fortune or cause bad luck, they will not make you rich and you will never get that luxury holiday you are being promised. They are lies; at best mischievous and at worst a virus hoax.
Finally, almost all virus alerts sent by e-mail are hoaxes. Unless the security warning comes from a legitimate anti-virus organisation to which you have signed up, you can be 99.9 per cent sure that the information is fraudulent. There is no point in forwarding the e-mail to anyone. If a virus alert does worry you, just check a reputable website. In particular, the McAfee website might be helpful.
Many e-mail programs, such as Outlook, have built-in tools that can block messages sent from certain addresses and filter messages based on keywords you define. To learn how these features work, check the 'Help' menu of the program you are using. For instance, if you are using Outlook, type the word 'spam' into the 'Answer Wizard'.
To protect your computer, make sure you are using a solid anti-virus program that scans all your incoming and outgoing e-mail messages. There are some good free anti-virus packages available, such as Avast and AVG.
Spoof e-mails are fraudulent e-mails appearing to come from a reliable source, such as a bank or building society. A spoof e-mail usually asks you to click on a link to confirm your bank account details or other sensitive information. This information will of course be used to drain your bank account.
Spoof or 'phishing' e-mails can look very legitimate. It is therefore good to remember that no bank will ever ask you to provide such details online.
If you receive a spoof e-mail, always report it. Most banks and building society's have a 'phishing' e-mail address to which you can forward the spoof e-mail; check the bank's website to find the address to forward the e-mail to.
In addition, you can help the fight against spoof e-mails by reporting it to www.millersmiles.co.uk. Miller Smiles is the internet's biggest archive of spoof e-mails and phishing scams. On their website you can also do a search to see if an e-mail you have received is indeed dodgy.
The above list with tips for stopping – or rather preventing – junk e-mails is by no means exhaustive. There is a lot of information about spam available online. The following websites may be particularly useful: