Scams

I've mentioned some scams by name - but I will not give those persons any more "ink" than they got...

Of late - I have noticed a new take on scams - or at lest they are hitting my junk mail/spam boxes....

These are the ones that tell you that you are a finalist or winner [or whatever] in a drawing by a Foundation...
I've checked and the Foundation names are legitimate....unfortunately the contests and drawings are not.

The usual clues are the many misspellings....especially as these spammers want you to think they are from legitimate sources. Legit mate sources would not spell so poorly or misstate the obvious names of USA or European agencies.

Please beware... I read that as more and more of the over 50 ish population gets more into being online - many of these are targeting us..

How do they get our info? That too unfortunately is very easy....One can buy email and postal addresses by age or other demographics! Or they buy millions of email addresses hoping to find the one who believes...

To stop spreading email addresses please do this...use the bcc: function in your mail program...it stands for blind carbon copy and it hides the addresses of all those you are sending to..

Also if someone sends you an email with many names and addresses showing - pass along the bcc info to them...

and when forwarding or replying - erase the RE: or change the subject heading....

There are programs that scour the Internet seeking those addresses that come in bunches and to often when one replies or forwards - all those names are again included...hence the RE: as a signal to the sapmmers...