Tag: Email scams

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Does Unsubscribe Really Do Anything and Should I Use It?

I get these questions a lot and my answer is always the same. It depends on the actual email. I know this isn’t the straightforward answer people are looking for, but it is the best answer. Here are a few situations and whether or not to use the unsubscribe button.

If you are receiving multiple emails from a real company, and by that, I mean the email address matches the company name (the email says it is from Target and the email ends with @target.com) then you can use the unsubscribe button and hopefully within a couple days you will no longer receive email from this company. According to The New York Times: “Marketers have 10 business days to honor your unsubscribe request. After that, it’s a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act for a sender to continue emailing you. If the emails keep coming, you’re well within your rights to mark them as spam using your email client’s built-in Spam button.”

If you know the email is not from a real company, meaning the email address does not match the company name, you should not click on the unsubscribe button. When you receive an email that is a phishing scam or some other type of scam there is no point in clicking on unsubscribe. Here are the reasons that you do not want to click unsubscribe in a scam email.

  1. Many scam emails come from stolen email accounts. Since they keep stealing new email accounts, unsubscribe will have no effect. It is a waste of time.
  2. Many times, the unsubscribe link will be the same link as any other link in the email. Clicking on it could cause damage to your computer or install malware. I suggest you never click any link in an email that could possibly be a scam.
  3. By clicking on a link in a scam email you are letting the scammers know that your email is a valid email, and you can end up on even more lists.
  4. Scammers don’t follow the rules.

How do you stop scammers from sending you email? You really can’t stop them if they have your email address, but you can reduce the number of scams that hit your inbox. Always mark scams as “junk” or “spam.” These filters learn over time what you don’t want to see and eventually most of the scams will go there instead of your inbox. This can also cause the email address they use to be flagged and blacklisted. This can slow them down but since they usually steal accounts or make fake accounts this will not stop them.

So, if your inbox keeps filling up with emails that you don’t want, you can unsubscribe to a couple real emails per day and your inbox will eventually look cleaner. You can also mark the scams as spam/junk and over time your inbox will receive less of those emails also.

If you are not sure if an email is real or not. Contact me and I can teach you how to tell the real from the fakes. I have also made a few videos about this, check out this playlist:

Watch the Whole Playlist

While you are there please subscribe to my channel!

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How Scammers Can Use Your Email Rules, sometimes called Filters, Against You.

This is something that I have seen many times. A scammer will somehow get access to your email and then they can send emails from your account without you even being aware of it. In fact, they hide it from you. They can carry on conversations with others right from your email and you will never see it.

First let me explain what rules are in email accounts. These are instructions to help you manage your email. You can set up a rule for instance, to move any email from “John” to the folder “John.” These rules can be very helpful if you receive a lot of email and there are some that you need for future references but don’t necessarily need to see them when they arrive. I always get an emailed receipt when I buy anything from my computer supplier. I don’t need to look at these emails, I just need them for documentation if I am ever audited. So, I set up a rule that anytime I receive an email from Micro Center those emails will be moved to my Micro Center folder.

Scammers can do the same thing in your email. They can send an email to your employee that says “Please pay this invoice” in the subject line. In this email they will tell you to follow this link and pay this invoice for them. They can set up a rule that says any email that has “Please pay this invoice” in the subject line, delete the email. They can go into the trash and keep corresponding with your employee about this and you will never know about it.
This is a basic description of how they do it, but you get the idea about how they can steal from companies by using this tactic.

So, how can you protect yourself from this type of scam that has cost many companies a lot of money? The first thing is to make sure your email password is complex and not similar to other passwords that you have and use 2 factor authentication. If you can keep the scammers out of your email you don’t even have to worry about this.

But it is still a good idea to check your rules occasionally to make sure there are not any new rules that can be used against you. I had a customer that was one of the recipients along with others in their company on an email from one of their customers. Suddenly she was not receiving these emails any longer while everyone else was still getting them and they could see that she was listed as a recipient in the emails.

We verified that there was no issue with her email, she was receiving emails from everyone else except this one person. Then we checked her rules in Outlook on her computer and finally logged in online to her email and checked the rules there. When we checked online there were some new rules set up that she was not aware of and didn’t set up.

The scammers were using her account to try to divert payments to another bank. Luckily, we caught it, and no money was sent to the wrong bank. We then deleted these rules, changed her email password, and forced a sign out on all devices. We also made sure there were no rules in anybody else’s email account in the company and we instituted 2 factor authentication to ensure their email accounts remain safe.

If you are familiar with email rules, you should immediately check to ensure there are no extra rules in your email accounts. If you do not know anything about rules and don’t know how to check for fake rules, here is a video where I walk through how to view your rules in Outlook, Outlook online, and Gmail, most other web-based email accounts work similar to these. Check with the company that supplies your email or contact me.

If you would like to receive the Email Scambusters Monthly Report, sign up at the link below. It is a two-step process. Sign up and then click the payment link. The cost is $49.99 per year which is less than one cup of coffee per month. If you need more information give me a call.

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It is time to have that talk…

with your aging parents. The talk about how to avoid becoming a victim of scams.

*The Federal Trade Commission received more than 2.1 million fraud reports from consumers in 2020, according to newly released data, with imposter scams remaining the most common type of fraud reported to the agency. 

*Consumers reported losing more than $3.3 billion to fraud in 2020, up from $1.8 billion in 2019. Nearly $1.2 billion of losses reported last year were due to imposter scams, while online shopping accounted for about $246 million in reported losses from consumers.

*Just over a third of all consumers who filed a fraud report with the FTC—34 percent—reported losing money, up from just 23 percent in 2019.

Your parents grew up in a different time. A time before the technology that is a part of our current daily life, was even invented. They may not understand it and that alone makes them an easier target for scams. They also were taught to be courteous and not rude. Today’s scammers will not stop for courteous responses. You must hang up and not answer when they call back. Your parents need to know that even if the voice on the phone seems like an expert, they should check it out with you or a trusted advisor before giving the caller any information or access to their devices. If the caller won’t wait for that they are definitely trying to scam.

Having this conversation with mom or dad doesn’t mean they are dumb. It means they haven’t been exposed to this newer technology very much and they don’t have the level of knowledge necessary to spot these very sophisticated scammers. Make sure they are aware of this multi-billion-dollar business and that there is no shame in questioning anything they think might be fake.

Here is a list of items you can use to start your talk:

Email 

  1. Verify the “From” address is from the domain of the company that supposedly sent the email.
  2. Read the email out loud. Does it sound like other emails you have read? Is there any broken English or typos?
  3. Don’t click on any links, hover over the link to see where it really is going.
  4. Contact the company or individual through their published phone number or the number on their bill, or if it is a friend use another method of communication that you know is really them or contact a mutual friend to verify the story.
  5. If the email claims to be a receipt for a purchase for Amazon or another online retailer, don’t follow any links, or call the listed number, login to your account like you normally would, to check for activity. The same goes for your bank or credit card.
  6. Do you have an account with this company that uses this email address? I occasionally get emails in my email for businesses that I don’t have an account, my wife has the account under her email.

Phone Calls 

  1. Call them back on their advertised number. Look on your last bill from them and use that number. Even if their number shows up on caller ID as belonging to the company.
  2. Never give them a payment over the phone especially an uncommon type of payment like a gift card or Bitcoin. Real businesses and government offices do not require or even allow uncommon payment types.
  3. Don’t give out personal information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license number, birthdate or account numbers. Since they called you, they should already have this information.
  4. No government agency will call you about some new issue. They will send you a letter.
  5. Technology companies like Microsoft, Dell, HP, Apple or any others will not call you about your device unless you have purchased a maintenance support plan with them. Even if you have a support plan, they won’t call you about something going on with your device. They are not monitoring them in that manner. The only time they will call you is to return a call that you made to them.

Remember, scams are also happening on social media, text messages and can even pop up on your computer uninvited. When it comes to scams of any kind, education and being aware will keep you from becoming a victim.  Remember, if it seems too good to be true, or if it seems really bad, check it with a known source. Never follow a link in an email without first verifying it is real. Never accept an unsolicited phone call. Call them back on their advertised phone number to verify what they are telling you.

After you have “the talk” why not subscribe to my email newsletter – Scam Busters Monthly Report? I will email a copy to you and your parent every month to help you educate them and to continue the conversation. This subscription is normally $50 per year, but I will give both of you the monthly newsletter for this same $50 per year. I have been talking to my parents for years about scams and due to this they have successfully stopped a number of potential scammers. I want the same for your family.

Every month I highlight scams and show how to determine they are scams. I use pictures to show exactly why these are not real messages. I also occasionally interview experts in the industry to get the latest info to all of my subscribers. Subscribers can also look back at the previous newsletters in my archive. In addition to the newsletter, I allow my subscribers to send me emails they are not sure about, and I will tell them if it is a scam or not.

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*https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/02/new-data-shows-ftc-received-2-2-million-fraud-reports-consumers

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A Few Recent Scams that I Heard About

As time goes by there are more scams designed to take your money. In just the past couple weeks, I have seen all of these. Please share these with everyone, especially anyone that would be vulnerable to the scams.

  1. Tampered Bank Account – People are receiving emails from Bank of America and other large banks telling them that due to recent suspicious activity their account has been frozen, and they need to login here to correct it. Many times, these people don’t even have an account with the bank, and they become concerned and follow the link, or if they do have an account, they think this is legitimate and follow the link. Some of these links can be keyloggers that will then infect your computer and keep track of your passwords etc. At the very least these links are to a page that looks like your bank, but it is not. It is just a page to capture your username and password. If you receive an email like his from a bank that you use, contact the bank through some other means. Call them on a number you have elsewhere or google the bank.  If you do not have an account with this bank, you can call them and verify that they do not have an account in your name, but NEVER FOLLOW THE LINK IN THE EMAIL.  This scam also works with Amazon, Ebay and other retailers.
  2. E-mailing for Cash – My wife recently received an e-mail from a former co-worker’s e-mail account that said she was traveling with her husband and they had some trouble and lost everything they had and needed $2500 to get home.  Of course, my wife did not believe this since this former co-worker is not the type of person to travel like this and the text of the e-mail did not sound like something this person would write.  She sent an e-mail to this person but didn’t reply to the e-mail that she had received.  Sure enough her former co-worker wasn’t traveling and knew nothing about this except that she had received a few similar e-mails asking her about her travel situation.
  3. An elderly friend recently received a call from someone claiming to be their grandchild and said they had gotten into trouble in Mexico and needed $1500 for bail money.  This person became confused and did send the money before they checked with this “grandchild’s” parents to verify the story.  They did get taken and so do many other seniors by this scam.
  4. Phone scams are very popular, I frequently get robocalls from a number that claims to be my utility company telling me that due to no payment my service will be cutoff in 30 minutes unless I pay now over the phone. Since I always pay this bill, I know this is fake and I just hang up. If you get a call like this and you are not sure if your bill is paid, hang up and contact your utility company through a published number. Please know hat your utility company normally doesn’t call you, they will send you a letter. The IRS, Social Security or your local sheriff or police department will not call you and demand money over the phone.
  5. I have also heard of people setting up a fake Facebook page impersonating someone who has many friends and trying to add the person’s friends to the new account for the purpose of exploiting those friends in the future.  If you get a friend request from someone who is already a friend, contact that person another way to verify if the request came from them.

These bring up an important point about Phishing scams; they send out thousands of e-mails and constantly make phone calls looking for their victims.  Make sure your loved ones are aware of these types of scams and make sure you always check with a known source if you receive an e-mail, phone call or request similar to these.