I’m sure you get these emails. They ask for your help and in return they will give you a percentage of some large sum of money. All you have to do is give them enough information to transfer their money into your bank account. This is to help them get this money out of the country. History shows that these emails always stated that they were from Nigeria.
As of late, these kinds of spammers have gotten trickier. Now they have started making the emails look like they are coming from FedEx or UPS. They talk about notifying you about some shipment for a purchase that you never made. In these emails, there is either some file attachment or link to take you to a website that has nothing to do with shipment notification. Other emails talk about being from some authority, real or made up.
Here is an example of an authority email.
Dear “Company” Subscriber,
As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity on the “Company” Webmail system and after noticing an issue on your account password, we are requesting confirmation from you for the following reason:
In accordance with “Company” Webmail User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure.
To verify your “Company” Webmail account, you must reply to this email
immediately and enter your password here (*********).Click reply,then enter your password.
Thank you for using “Company” webmail.
“Company” Support.
“Company” is a generic term to protect the actual firm. The fact that the sender is looking for you to send them your email account password is shady and should stop you from replying. With some investigation, I found that if you reply to this email, it will not be going to “Company” Support. It’s headed right to some generic email account.
The key to these emails is they are trying to get information about you to take advantage. I just saw a television commercial that talks about how everything on the Internet has to be true. Don’t be that person. If you get an email that asks you for personal information, makes unrealistic claims, or talks about things the do not make sense to you, be one with your delete key. Giving them the time of day means they win. Just delete these emails.
Later…