Simple Scams or Bags of Money
Congratulations, You've Won...
by Ben Ferm Manager
Ben Ferm 
Manager
Lately my mailbox, well most of them actually, have been flourishing with different kinds of "Congratulation, You've won..." and "The ... is already yours"-letters. We have all seen these, in different outlooks; Phones, X-boxes, IPods... You just name it, You've already propably won it. Several times.
Most of them are simply a pain in the ass, filling up your inbox and trashcan, and can be deleted without opening since you so easily recognize them from the header. If you don't you usually end up giving more information about yourself, and eventually - in some way you seldom notice - agree to recieve even more spam. In worst cases you totally go for it, the product never arrives and a few months later mysterical charges start showing up on your bank account.
The reason why you get these is so simple; You've placed your e-mail adress on the wrong place. However, this may not nesessarily be your fault. Many of the now so popular social networking sites out there don't have a single clue on where their sign-up information eventually ends up. Lately there's been a lot of talking and writing about how Facebook handle the information they gather there, as an example.
So what can we do to stop this kind of spam? Well, not much. But the amount of it can be reduced and handled more easily. Many of these tips you already know, but a reminder may be in place:
- NEVER buy anything from a company that spams. Should be easy enough if you manage to not open the mails ;)
- Use a separate email address
when you post messages to any public forum, such as newsgroups and mailing lists. This one is really important, never ever give your main adress out to any of these places.
- Remove your email address from your website. This may be hard for online marketers, but you can always:
- Consider acquiring multiple email addresses for different purposes. As most of you already know there is a multitude of free email-services out there.
- Subscribe to a spam prevention service. This is not always a good idea, be sure to look the service up before joining. Or you end up getting more spam from the prevention service than you had in the first place. And, of course:
- Filter your email.
Finally, and this may turn the whole thing upside down; There actually are a few companies that you may WANT to recieve these letters from. Just in case you HAVE WON the Ipod!
Good Luck!
:)
Oct 22nd 2010 04:04
ManagerLately my mailbox, well most of them actually, have been flourishing with different kinds of "Congratulation, You've won..." and "The ... is already yours"-letters. We have all seen these, in different outlooks; Phones, X-boxes, IPods... You just name it, You've already propably won it. Several times.
Most of them are simply a pain in the ass, filling up your inbox and trashcan, and can be deleted without opening since you so easily recognize them from the header. If you don't you usually end up giving more information about yourself, and eventually - in some way you seldom notice - agree to recieve even more spam. In worst cases you totally go for it, the product never arrives and a few months later mysterical charges start showing up on your bank account.
The reason why you get these is so simple; You've placed your e-mail adress on the wrong place. However, this may not nesessarily be your fault. Many of the now so popular social networking sites out there don't have a single clue on where their sign-up information eventually ends up. Lately there's been a lot of talking and writing about how Facebook handle the information they gather there, as an example.
So what can we do to stop this kind of spam? Well, not much. But the amount of it can be reduced and handled more easily. Many of these tips you already know, but a reminder may be in place:
- NEVER buy anything from a company that spams. Should be easy enough if you manage to not open the mails ;)
- Use a separate email address
when you post messages to any public forum, such as newsgroups and mailing lists. This one is really important, never ever give your main adress out to any of these places.
- Remove your email address from your website. This may be hard for online marketers, but you can always:
- Consider acquiring multiple email addresses for different purposes. As most of you already know there is a multitude of free email-services out there.
- Subscribe to a spam prevention service. This is not always a good idea, be sure to look the service up before joining. Or you end up getting more spam from the prevention service than you had in the first place. And, of course:
- Filter your email.
Finally, and this may turn the whole thing upside down; There actually are a few companies that you may WANT to recieve these letters from. Just in case you HAVE WON the Ipod!
Good Luck!
:)
Oct 22nd 2010 04:04
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Comments
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Warren Day
 good tips on keeping the spam to manageable levels. The first one "NEVER buy anything from a company that spams" will do the least for your mailbox but is the most important, if no one ever bought, eventually spam would die out Oct 22nd 2010 04:11 |
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Cheryl Baumgartner
  Medical Billing/Coding/InsuranceThe same applies to scams. If people wouldn't but into them scammers wouldn't keep running them Oct 22nd 2010 07:41 |
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Serban Stanescu
 Writer, webmaster, trainer, ZENLAI personally use the same strategy so I subscribe to your checklist. On the other hand, for a beginner that is eager to get more mails, more contacts, many of those scams look crazyly attractive. I just released a book on the Romanian market about such a scam (Ponzi scheme) stating that you can earn $25 by only senting an email. After reading some 90 seconds, I came out to understand the whole scheme. Unfortunately, the site had a very appealing design, well written key-lines and used psychollogical techniques to blind the unexperienced reader and manipulate his subcounscious mind. Where did it start from? I received a forwarded email from one of my students, asking me "Should I subscribe?". So, I ended up writing a book on those Ponzi schemes. I knoe the scenario for more than 5 years, but it seems a lot of people still use it. I hope that groups like that will erradicate scam like the ones pointed out here! Good luck, and watch your mail closely, before opening any UNSOLICITED MAIL! May 28th 2011 15:54 |
I recently read here on Apsense a blog "I love spam". The writer explained how she got signups from spam. When you search I love spam in the search box you will find it. I set it up last week and am curious to see it it works.
Oct 22nd 2010 04:11