Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Nearly caught by spam.. [or 'Saved by Thunderbird']

(1/4) > >>

tomos:
I dont bank online so I dont have to think twice about any mail asking me to confirm my account details etc.

But today I got a mail from Synplicity saying that as I havent used my (free) acount in over 60 days (which is true) it would be canceled if I didnt login.
I almost clicked on a link - no actually I *did* click on a link (...I was thinking about something else) & Thunderbird warned me that the link was not what it seemed and true - there were 9 links and all were leading to the same link
http://lfov.net/webrecorder.........[etc]

I dont know did Thunderbird always do that, but if you hold the mouse over a link - the url will show in the statusbar.

housetier:
I have made it a habit to never click but to always copy and paste the url. I assume this helps against a few scams.

KynloStephen66515:
Your BANK will NEVER ask for you to confirm ANYTHING via e-mail, this is a scam that has been going around for a long time, if they require you to confirm anything they will call you and ask for you to come into the bank.  Even if they ask you to do it over the phone, you can refuse and request to go into your local branch.

I have received e-mails off banks that i do not even have an account with, telling me that there has been 'fraudulent activity' on my account.  These have been arriving for about 12 months, the easiest thing to do, if you have ANY concerns, is to simply ignore them and contact your bank directly to ask if the info you have been given is correct.

Just remember, make sure they have your up-to-date contact details and you will be OK.

NEVER TRUST E-MAILS CLAIMING TO BE FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES AS THEY WILL 99.9% OF THE TIME, BE A SCAM.

The following link is for the UK but it is also valid for the rest of the world.

http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/tradingstandards.nsf/open/4530F1F50E639E4E802574C100447396
(RAW LINK) - Always hover over a link and look in your status bar to check if the link is actually what it seems to be...


Example:

Hover over the following links and look in your status bar:

Http://www.google.com

Http://www.google.com

Notice, the first link, takes you to google, and the 2nd link looks like the same thing, but if you hover over the second link, you will notice (in your status bar at the bottom of your browser) that it takes you to Microsoft.com...

Hope this helps :)

jaden:
While I agree wholeheartedly with not clicking links in emails and being wary, in this case the email wasn't spam, it was legitimate.  I received the same one and the links were similar, but different.  If you look closely, you'll see the lid field has different values.  If you click on the links you'll also see they take you to different pages.

http://lfov.net/webrecorder/c/?cid=LF_dd05be9a&lid=265&vid=704528be-a48e-438b-9ad4-0615c9ef55a1
http://lfov.net/webrecorder/c/?cid=LF_dd05be9a&lid=266&vid=704528be-a48e-438b-9ad4-0615c9ef55a1
http://lfov.net/webrecorder/c/?cid=LF_dd05be9a&lid=269&vid=704528be-a48e-438b-9ad4-0615c9ef55a1

lfov.net redirects to LoopFuse.net, a sales and marketing automation service.  These services allow the sender (in this case Syncplicity) to track what links were clicked along with other analytics.

You'll never go wrong if you manually type in the company's URL when you get an email, but in some cases (like the survey) the links are masked for the sake of email tracking.  The only way to the survey is through the tracked link.

tomos:
While I agree wholeheartedly with not clicking links in emails and being wary, in this case the email wasn't spam, it was legitimate.  I received the same one and the links were similar, but different.  If you look closely, you'll see the lid field has different values.  If you click on the links you'll also see they take you to different pages.

http://lfov.net/webrecorder/c/?cid=LF_dd05be9a&lid=265&vid=704528be-a48e-438b-9ad4-0615c9ef55a1
http://lfov.net/webrecorder/c/?cid=LF_dd05be9a&lid=266&vid=704528be-a48e-438b-9ad4-0615c9ef55a1
http://lfov.net/webrecorder/c/?cid=LF_dd05be9a&lid=269&vid=704528be-a48e-438b-9ad4-0615c9ef55a1

lfov.net redirects to LoopFuse.net, a sales and marketing automation service.  These services allow the sender (in this case Syncplicity) to track what links were clicked along with other analytics.

You'll never go wrong if you manually type in the company's URL when you get an email, but in some cases (like the survey) the links are masked for the sake of email tracking.  The only way to the survey is through the tracked link.
-jaden (February 11, 2010, 06:10 PM)
--- End quote ---

ahhh, interesting. thanks Jaden

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page