"It's That SPAM
Again!"
It's happening again. It's
always happening, but lately my inboxes have been filled with them
as if the spammers in all of us have been awakened. What's that,
you don't spam? Never! You may be an indentured spammer but don't
know it! Trying to pass along a boycott of gasoline to bring prices
down? Or you think that 3 die-hard competitors made an announcement
on the news that you can make money forwarding emails? So you pass
along these chain letters because it's hard to resist the part of
you that wonders if it's true. I think we've all been
there.
As people in an industry of
service, we want to help people...clients...or potential
clients. So we forward these emails to our entire address book,
because we think, "hey, who wouldn't want to know what they can do
to help lower gas prices ", right? What ends up happening is that
you just gave yourself your own bad press. You did not investigate
the truth of the claim on any of the popular email
hoax verification websites, you just forwarded it along. And,
if you didn't BCC (blind carbon
copy) everyone, then your entire address book is now being
forwarded to millions of others who continue to pass the message
along.
What's the harm, really?
Well, aside from clogging email servers with these messages, and
increasing the cost of managing email, you increase the risk to
your computer, and the computers of others. The risk becomes a
little more clear when we realize that the majority of these emails
originate from spammers trying to get the message around and back
to them enough that they will be able to gather some good email
addresses to which they can send their junk email. Each time you
hit that forward button, you are helping them win and clogging your
own inbox! This is why using the BCC option is important whenever
you send any email. Protect your family, friends,
colleagues, and clients from more SPAM by simply deleting the
email. As a courtesy, you may first want to reply to the person who
sent it to you and refer them to an email hoax verification website
such as Snopes.com (which is where we found
the popular "gas out "
email used in our example today). Other risks include the
ability for people to begin attaching viruses to the emails. So,
your "virus warning " could become a virus email itself. Think
about that scenario.. "my real estate agent sent me an email that
crashed my entire system... ". You don't want to be that
agent!
So, how can you be sure an
email is a hoax? The first step is to be on the lookout for these
characteristics:
-
The email says,
"This is not a chain letter " or "This is not a hoax "
-
The email says to
send it to "everyone you know " or to "as many people as possible
"
-
The email
contains technical sounding language to sound more
credible
-
The author of the
email identifies him/herself as a leader of a foreign country or
part of the leader's family or staff
-
The author of the
email claims that the original email was sent to them by someone
who works for the company involved or is a lawyer or doctor or some
professional who supposedly "backs " whatever is said in the
email
The easiest way to check on a
hoax if you are unsure is to visit a site like Snopes.com and
search for the subject matter of the email. For example, we found
the gas out email by searching for "gas prices " in the Snopes.com
search engine. Another great site is Symantec.com where
you can see a list of hoaxes collected by email subject
line.
So, the next time you get an
email promising $800 from Microsoft for forwarding an email, think
twice and use the delete button instead of the forward button. The
people in your address book will be happy you did!
You're welcome to forward
this email to others for educational purposes...but alas, there
will be no special reward for forwarding this to as many people as
you can in the next 10 minutes. ;) |
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