Spam e-mail  

If you get e-mail that you think might be spam, or a hoax, report it to your Internet Service Provider. Let them update their firewall. Even if it's not a threat, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Do not open attachments if you do not know who they are from. Attachments sometimes contain viruses.

Do not forward e-mail if you have an uneasy feeling about it. Just delete it! Whether it is a hoax or not, you have saved the next person's time!

Here are some hoax e-mails you might get:

SPCA, or other animal shelter, is closing down.

A missionary or Peace Corpse volunteer in Cameroon has fallen on hard times and needs to find a home for his dog. If you offer to pay shipping costs, or to pay vets bill to get it through the border, you will be scammed because there is no dog! 

A dog is missing. Read it carefully. Is the phone number correct, or is there a digit missing? Is it dated? Does it say what town the dog was in?

A child is missing. The child may have been found by the time you get the email, but you'll never know because spammers remove the date, location, ph nos. & anything that can verify the authenticity of the matter.

A child is dying of cancer and if you forward the email, she will get money. Spammers play on the emotions. This may have started off as a genuine plea for help, but it has been manipulated by unfeeling baddies. The child may already have died, but the email still circulates as there is no way of verifying it.

A widow is dying of cancer and wants to leave money to "The Lord's work," or she needs to get it out of an African country. Can she have your bank details? You will end up being robbed!

Some scam emails say if you forward the email, you will get money, or a free cellphone.

Bad luck will befall you if you do not forward the email within a certain time.

If you send the email back to the person who sent it to you, you will get good luck. Why should you send it back? The sender has already read it. Just delete it instead of letting the spammer gather email addresses.

Many petitions are sent out by folk who are tracking the email and compiling lists of email addresses to sell to online marketers. The subject of the petition may be true, but passing it on is a waste of time and just slows down the internet. 

You may have seen the fireworks petition doing the rounds by e-mail in the form of signing your name and every 100th or so person has to forward it to an e-mail address provided.   Please know that signing such a petition is of no use and your precious time and interest in trying to support the worthy cause is wasted. 

Always remember that the Real petitions have websites with current news about the issue  and a place to sign the petition on the web. Web petitions overcome all the problems of email petitions: Nobody's email server gets overloaded, the website doesn't die because of a dead email address, signers can get an assurance that the issue is still current or proof that it's expired, the signers' email addresses can be verified which increases credibility, and signers can optionally get a newsletter to keep apprised of the status of the issue.

Some e-mails quote well-known figures & organisations like Dr James Dobson & Radio Pulpit. This gives them a facade of sincerity.

Spammers copy Christian messages and forward them knowing folk will not delete them.

You have won an overseas lottery

You have been left an inheritance by a relative

The widow of a politician in another country wants to invest money in your bank account to get it out the country. They use women's names because women are thought to be more trustworthy.

Christ will judge every scammer, spammer, porn-gazer, online gambler, & every deceiver.

Example of scam email:

I received an email from a friend stating that she was out of the country, and had a crisis and needed a loan send to her. Of course I had just seen her so I knew it was a scam and notified her of it. Apparently the day before, she received an email from ????yahoo stating that in order to keep her email account she needed to verify her email address and password, which unfortunately she did. Every one of her contacts received this same urgent request and when she tried to notify her contacts, her list had been removed. So disturbing. So beware everyone.

Click here to report internet fraud

<*)))><

top of page       puppies     contact webmaster    home