Watch out for E-Card Greetings Scam in your Inbox!
Photo by: Chispita_666
The time of the year has come when you must watch out for a scam that can spoil your X-Mas celebrations. Round this time, you would be expecting to receive loads of emails carrying hearty greetings and best wishes from your loved ones. You would not expect trouble lurking around these emails and so, may let down your guard a bit. There are fraudsters who anticipate this and therefore wager to launch a tailor-made and potent scam to pull off a heist.
Aptly, the E-Card scam comes inside a friendly-looking email. It says you have received season’s greetings in the form of an electronic greeting card from a ‘friend’, ‘neighbor’, ‘classmate’ or a ‘near relative’. To view the card, you are asked to click on a link inside the mail. It can also be given that the link is for downloading essential software required for viewing the Ecard.
Either way, the link is the entry to the scam.
A click on the link can bring a variety of troubles. It could fetch a scam website asking you to give away your credit card number, social security number, account passwords and other such personal information. Or, it could trigger the download of malware that would enable the fraudsters themselves to obtain such information off your computer. And while at it, it also raids your online address book and targets your contacts to further further the scam.
Experts offer a simple remedy against such scams: Not opening any emails from strangers and if you must, then not clicking on any links planted inside.
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December 4th, 2008 at 6:24 am
[...] Watch out for E-Card Greetings Scam in your Inbox! Categories: Cons & ScamsTags: fraud-and-scam-news, greetings-scam, [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 6:31 am
[...] It could fetch a scam website asking you to give away your credit card number, social security number, account passwords and other such personal information. Or, it could trigger the download of malware that would enable the fraudsters .. Read more [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 7:02 am
[...] Watch out for E-Card Greetings Scam in your Inbox! [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 8:15 am
[...] Watch out for E-Card Greetings Scam in your Inbox! [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
There are a few precaution that one needs to be aware of when one receives ecards.
* Make sure you recognize the sender’s name. The sender’s FULL name should ALWAYS be included in the subject line (and sometimes in the “from” field) of the email.
* The web site should be easily identified in one or more of the following places: the “from” field, the subject line, or in the email itself.
* Do NOT click any links with simple IP address. In a fake ecard email, the IP address may be hidden and can only be seen by hovering your cursor over the link or right clicking on the link to view properties. The link should not be a series of number (e.g. 169.180.1.15, commonly referred to as an IP address).
* An ecard email should NOT have any attachment of any kind. The recipient will go to the web site to “pick up” (i.e. view) the ecard.
* Legitimate ecard emails will always include an option to pick up the ecard by typing the web site address and enter a code.
* Use a webmail or email application that has good spam filter. My experience with Gmail has been very good. It filters out almost all spam mail.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
[...] original here: Watch out for E-Card Greetings Scam in your Inbox! Categories: Online ScamTags: Fraud Alert, fraud-and-scam-news, greetings-scam, grip, insurance, [...]
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