Beware holiday e-mail scams
MADISON — The Wisconsin Better Business Bureau is urging consumers to be skeptical of e-mails that look like they’re from legitimate companies.
The agency says a new string of "phishing" e-mails is making the rounds this holiday season. Phishing is a scam that uses valid-looking e-mails, usually to trick recipients into revealing private information.
The bureau warns of recent phishing e-mails that appear to come from shippers including FedEx, UPS and Wal-Mart.
The subject line suggests there was a problem with a delivery and the recipient should open an attachment for further instructions. The attachment contains a computer virus.
Other false e-mails look like surveys or e-cards.
Dec 5, 2008 at 6:17 p.m.
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The clever hackers can impersonate ANY company. Treat your computer like your front door. If you aren't expecting them, don't let them in!
Dec 5, 2008 at 8:21 a.m.
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I've already seen FedEx and UPS as soon as 2 weeks ago on my computer. I just send them to "spam". Just remember to let your other family member know, like your kids. Thinking they might find out what there getting for xmas.... "A Virus"
Dec 5, 2008 at 6:13 a.m.
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The other emails I get, from "well meaning" friends, are the chainletter emails.
"Send this to 10 friends and you'll be blessed - if you don't - the sky will fall and you'll have 1,750 years of bad luck"!
I bet I get a 1/2 dozen a week, both at home and at work.
Also, they don't remove all the dozens of previous email addys from the forwards, endangering the privacy of the people who received it before me. Now that's just stupid or lazy....
Dec 5, 2008 at 12:35 a.m.
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With the economy going in the dumpster, there are going to be a lot of people looking for ways to make extra money this year. If anyone asks you about a scheme to make money using their computer and the Internet, please talk them out of it. Be forceful if you must, stealing their keyboard, or bouncing old Amway or Shaklee packages from their garage shelves off their heads, but get the point across that the only people who will make money are the con artists that cash your friend's check or process their credit card payment for the "sure-fire, absolutely guaranteed" marketing scam.
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While you are at it, you might as well do a public service and tell them that, although they have extra time on their hands, they should not spend any of it forwarding "Send dying little Joey a postcard", "Earn a Disney vacation from Bill Gates", or "IRS/USPS will tax/ban e-mails" messages to their friends or family. They will not endear themselves with the wiser folk and they could encourage the simpler ones to reply in kind.
Dec 4, 2008 at 7:34 p.m.
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For a while I would delete any emails from ups thinking they were spam, until I realized they were actually legitimate. I personally would rather get tracking numbers emailed to me from the company I ordered from, not from ups, because of all the fake ups emails like this article describes.
On a somewhat related subject, I always like to lookup email forwards on urbanlegends.about.com. I don't think I've gotten a legitimate forward yet.
Dec 4, 2008 at 6:57 p.m.
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It's not something new. It's just people 'forget' and think these things are true.
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