GKauten Consultingv1.2

So tonight I was working on a website for a client and the little “new email” ding came echoing out of my computer speakers. There were of course a couple new emails in the inbox, but inside the little junk email folder was this solitary email from Mr. Patrick Chan Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd, or supposedly anyways. He of course had an amazing offer that simply no American could ever refuse:

Before the U.S and Iraqi war our client Col. Hosam Hassan who was with the Iraqi forces and also business man made a numbered fixed deposit for 18 calendar months, with a value of Thirty million United State Dollars ($30,000,000.00) only in my branch. Upon maturity several notices was sent to him, even during the war early this year.

Now when I say no American could ever refuse, what I really meant to say was that I hoped no American would ever be naive enough to believe this is actually a legitimate email instead of a yet another weak attempt to steal personal information. Despite the ridiculous nature of this email however, it did make me think about just how many other people probably get this email every day, and how many unfortunately send their information along only to realize minutes after doing so that it was a bad idea. It was at this point in time that I decided maybe this would be a good thing to spread the word on so here are a few pointers to keep your identity safe and spam emails to a minimum.

1. If it sounds too good to be true, you can bet it is. The best tactic used to deceive people into sending their personal information along is of course to completely dumbfound them with an unbelievable amount of gifts or money. And hey, in most every case you don’t even have to do anything or buy anything just to get this amazing payout. Well in reality, nothing like what these emails promise ever comes without a price. Even our lottery system requires buying a ticket to play, it doesn’t just come free for being a citizen. Just click delete.

2. Big important people do not send emails like this. Just because an email may use the first paragraph to swear up and down that they are really Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or some other well known amazingly financially gifted CEO, it doesn’t actually mean the email is from them. It should also be a pretty good indication when the email comes from bigbill201193@yahoo.com, stevelikesapple@myfreeemailspot.com, or the like. Not to mention, there are probably about 100 people underneath each of the aforementioned execs who would be responsible for sending any notice of a sweepstakes award or other notification. Just click delete.

3. Cry me a river, no really. Another favored tactic when attempting to strip humanity of their hard earned money is the ever effective ‘pity me’ type scenario. Upon opening the email you are almost immediately brought to tears over hearing of the loss of 13 fmily members, 7 beloved pets, 2 houses, and maybe a bicycle or two. Or even worse yet, while traveling overseas hubby lost all his money on a gambling or alcoholic binge but had just enough money left over that he could fly back home only to leave his wife and children stranded in a foreign country to live on the streets until he can make enough money to bring them back home. I know, sadly, wipe the tear from your eye and just click delete. Though this may be a good time to make a little donation to the Humane Society or Komen’s Cure just so you feel a little bit better.

4. The very very sneaky ones. Though the first three pointers above obviously cover the most obvious of spam emails, there are those people out there who are much more crafty and clever with their emails. I have seen many emails from top companies which are almost identical to the actual legitimate email templates used by the company in question. There are however a few subtle changes to the email which focus on a highly targeted section of the email, typically a link to sign in to your account. Now the tricky thing here is when you assume the email is legit, you often fail to investigate the url in your browser before entering your information and hitting submit. Then when you see an empty page or some other obvious indicator that you didn’t actually log in to anything but rather sent your credentials to some unknown source, it all gets a bit tricky and takes much more work to undo, than simply checking the url before you put any information in. Just click delete, oh an try to make a habit out of checking the urls before entering sensitive information.

5. When in doubt, run for the hills. Okay maybe you don’t actually have to run for the hills, but just stop and think before messing around with random emails. Check the sender, be careful of embedded links, never respond with sensitive information, and if all else fails… Just click delete!