Have you ever received an email telling you that you just won a fabulous prize and all you have to do is fill in your personal information or pay the shipping to receive it? You didn’t, so don’t! The truth is that spam emails are getting smarter and unless we react smarter, none of us wins. You could even lose big! 

The fact is that those “Enlarge your penis!” emails that just had us smirking before we quickly deleted them have now turned into much more cleverly disguised scams that look really legit. It all has to do with the fact that more of your information is out there on the Internet and social media…all your personal information from likes to dislikes and even your habits. Even your business email is at risk once you make a personal purchase from it.

Now there are emails that look like they are from legitimate businesses like Bank of America. They may that tell you that it appears there may have been fraudulent activity on your account and they just need to verify some information….or the Social Security Administration letting you know someone may have stolen your identity or that you owe money due to an error and charges will be brought against you unless you contact them or pay. The normal reaction that these emails elicit is a shiver down your spine and the first thing you want to do is fix it. Don’t! None of these folks will ever reach out to you with an email (or a phone call for that matter).

There are also emails from what look to be real companies offering products or services; when in actuality, their link will re-route your payment information to a scammer! One of the latest is email spam scams is from an Amazon Prime imposter, asking you to update your payment information. The email contains a logo that looks like their logo in their colors. Don’t be fooled. Amazon will never reach out to you for your payment information this way. 

There are things you can do to keep yourself safe. Google Gmail is great at spam filtering, you can check your security settings to see if they can be improved, you can make your passwords stronger and regularly update them…and, if you would like some professional assistance on the security front, Computer “A” Services is always here to help.