If you get an e-mail from a relative or acquaintance asking you to send one of his/her friends an Amazon gift card for her birthday ignore the e-mail.

The e-mail will look like it came from a long time friend or relative who you trust and it will look real. It will be from the person's actual e-mail address. The e-mail will tell you that your friend is having trouble with his/her credit card but his/her friend's birthday is today and she doesn't want to disappoint her friend. Do not under any condition send the Amazon gift card until you actually speak to your friend or relative confirming that this request is real. More than likely this is a spam trying to get you to send a gift card for some sum of money, probably in the amount of $200.

 

I often tell such people that if they were to devote that much effort into a real job they would likely be very successful as compared to working as criminals.

 

And then they have YOUR email address to add to their collection.. Never respond to any spam.

 

Until recently my ISP has done a fairly good job of eliminating SPAM E-mails. But in the last month or so I have been receiving E-mails from companies like Home Depot, Ace hardware, etc. Companies that I do not do business with informing me that I have won a $50 gift card or asking me to take a survey, etc. The interesting thing is that the sending address is not even "spoofed". I just delete them without opening them. How do those people sleep with themselves at night?

 

^ I get those too, not sure how they find me, listing them as spam does not prevent them from coming back.

 

I got one that I thought was from a friend. Deleted it and called my friend. He said other friends got it too.

 

Always always always look at the real source email address.
If the email address is valid but you're suspicious forward back to the sender asking what's up? do you have a virus? They may not know.
When in doubt never open pictures as retrieving the pics validates your address.
Never open suspicious attachments.
Never click on embedded links without validating the link address.
Never reply to a spam email.

 

Wow, I got an email today saying I was a lucky beneficiary in the Elon Musk Foundation Xmas giveaway. I just had to send them my personal email for the details.

 

Looking up the address is fine and you can get a lot of information from that but the bottom line is to never ever click on anything in an email unless it actually is from someone you know that can be verified by the content of greeting or confirmation from the person/company. Is it generic or specific?
Don't ever take a survey or even a like or dislike. Always navigate to a desired website yourself.

That goes for phone messages/calls too. My wife keeps getting calls from "Costco Citi Visa" that is telling her about a fraudulent charge. (We have personal and business cards from Citi Costco) Just press #1. DO NOT DO IT!
We called instead and Citi said there is no recored of them calling or fraud activity. They said it was a scam and to never press anything on your phone. It will be the same as clicking on a computer. Malware will be downloaded to the phone. When there is an issue with a charge you will see a text (or real call) with a specific amount and business so you know that it is legitimate and can confirm or deny the charge.

 

I often get emails from a group that copies the logo and information of my internet provider pretty darn good, it all looks very official. They tell you that you need to update your information or you will lose access to your email by a certain date. If your try to update your info you are in for a lot of headaches (I know people who have replied to such emails and they paid a price). When I get those emails I check the source of the sender's email address and you can tell it is fake that way, but they do a pretty good job of trying to copy the internet provider's information so I can see some people falling for that scam.

A couple weeks ago someone "spoofed " my cel phone number and called my wife on her cel phone when I was sitting beside her in bed. She turned to me and said "hey you are calling me !", lol we had a good laugh with that one.