Email Scams! Will You Be Next?

Email scams in the form of a petition are a HUGE scam. Prayer chains basically work the same way.

Municipalities and Congress DO NOT accept email petitions. They only accept petitions that have a signed signature and your full address.

• Almost all of these emails want you to add your name and address, then you're asked to forward to all your friends.

Does this sound familiar to you? This is a popular form of what is call "scam baiting".

Check out identity theft scams for numerous scams that are important to be aware of.

I'm sure you've received these and probably passed many of these on. I know I did, before I had knowledge about this scam. Who knew what danger could be in store for you!

• The purpose of this type of scam is to receive names and "cookies" tracking information for spammers and telemarketers so they can validate email accounts that are active, for their own purposes.

• Whenever you receive this type of email it usually states; "To get good luck, sign the petition and send to 15 people".

  This will have an email tracker program attached that tracks the emails and cookies of everyone you forward to.

• In other cases, the host sender receives a copy each time you forward to someone and this enables it to get a list of "active" emails to sell to others or use in spam emails.

Another popular scam that can affect all of us at one time or another is jury duty scams.

These email scams take vigilance to stop, have become extremely dangerous and can involve some of the largest companies. You may already deal with one or more of them.

The emails we receive every day are loaded with this type of spam.

• What makes some of these scams so sneaky is the fact that they look like the "real deal" from a well known and respected company such as pay pal, credit card companies and banks, to name a few.

I have even received an email that looked like it was from my ISP (Internet Service Provider).

This scam will say they need to check on an amount that was charged to your account by accident.

Of course, the mistake can be rectified, if you will just send specific personal information to a particular email address.

• The information they require is usually a social security number, street address, confirmation of your credit card number, and telephone number.

• Many times this information is used for the purpose of identity theft, to charge on your account, or to open a new account and charge to their hearts content.

• The scams done by email vary, but the one thing they have in common is the tremendous amount of money you could end up owing and the real possibility of ruined credit.

There are numerous other scams that all work basically the same way. See more identity theft scams.

Online Scams Have Included

• Prescription drugs that claim to be cheap

• Work-at-home scams

• Jury duty scams

• Phone calls that have premium rates

The common denominator is, they all want your personal information so you can be scammed and steal your credit, money and identity.

• If you do become a victim of any email scam, you may contact Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

National White Collar Crime Center and the FBI have formed this partnership.

The complaints are channeled to the correct law-enforcement agencies.

Legal actions can also be taken against scammers by contacting your ISP.

Protect yourself from email scams by installing security software. See identity theft software.




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