E-mail
Scams - cont'd
E-mail
nuisances have
been appearing in a variety of forms, including spam, phishing, pharming,
and spyware.
- Spam: unsolicited
e-mail
- Phishing: attempts to
acquire sensitive information, (passwords, account numbers, etc.)
- Pharming: re-directing
website's traffic to a another websites (often one under the spammer's
control)
- Spyware: software that
is deceptively installed on a users computer to gather information
I received an e-mail
today from what first appeared to be a bank, Capital One, indicating that
I had a message. In order to view the message I would have to log on to my
account. I don't have a Capital One account, so it was immediately obvious
to me that it was not legitimate. However, there are millions that do have
Capital One accounts, so it's not unlikely that some recipients would
believe that the message actually came from Capital One. Capital One is
certainly not the only financial institution being targeted. If you
do a search on "email bank fraud" you will see almost every major bank
represented. My advice, if you receive an e-mail from what appears
to be your bank, is to contact your bank and any other relevant reporting
agency. If you want to minimize your doubts first, you can do the
following:
This is an image of my
e-mail: |
So,
what do you do if you think you're being
scammed?
There are several
software programs available that allow you to track down the source of the
e-mail - not what it says in the 'From' line, but the original sever
I. P. address. I. P. addresses are unique to a machine. Some are
dedicated to specific computers, but many are assigned for a specific
period of time when a computer user logs on to the Internet. In any
event, you can trace to the Internet service provider, and they will
always know who has been assigned a particular number.
If you do a search for
"email tracking software" or "spam tracking software" you will find a
variety of programs that will allow you to track down the source of the
unwanted e-mail. Below is a screen shot from a program called
eMailTrackerPro. The program tracked the bogus website's Internet Service
Provider to an I. P. address in Baltimore, Maryland. |
The above
link can be found on the "Contact Us" page of the real Capital One
website. I forwarded the scam email to the Real Capital One.
Just for interest's sake, do
a search for email bank fraud, and see how prevalent the problem is.
Hopefully, this will be the only way to have to find this out. |