June 2014 – Beware of phishing emails!!!
These types of emails are sadly common these days. They are sent out randomly to people (emails are obtained through business websites, Facebook, etc.) and try to sound like they are regarding something important… yet they are always vague. They never actually say what they are actually regarding but rather use phrases like “your account”, “your online report”, or “your credit”… something that would sound like it might be real to anyone who reads it.
The fact is, these emails are sent to “fish” for information. They will direct you to a website and ask you to enter personal information to supposedly log in to view further details. They then take your personal information and either try to use it themselves fraudulently, or sell it to companies such as solicitors who do cold calling or send junk mail/email advertising a product or service. NEVER enter your information into a site you do not recognize.
If a business of yours like a bank account or credit card ever needed to reach you they would do so either via mail or from a recognizable email address. As a general rule of thumb, NEVER click on a link to an email that isn’t obviously from a trusted source and which is sent to “undisclosed recipients” or where it seems to be sent to themselves with you CC’d/BCC’d (carbon copied/blind carbon copied). Those are signs of bulk emailing and would never be used to provide a legitimate link to a confidential site.
The best way to handle these is to train your email that these are each spam. As you tell your spam filter more and more that these are spam they should start to be delivered directly to your spam inbox so you don’t have as many cluttering up your main email inbox.