what's the best way to protect my computer from email scams?

Question

Received emails,three to be exact, stating woman dying from cancer, wanted to leave me part of inheritance. They even had an attorney's name from united kingdom,and followed up with a message suppossedly from the FBI.

Answer 1

Your addy may have been picked up somewhere & sold to these bastards. Some helpful tips:

Mail follows a certain 'protocol' (or procedures; part of it is that when you fetch your mail from the server, the message appears to the sender as "mail delivered to a valid address" so the spammers then know it's a valid address & keep sending junk (plus spread your address to other spammers).



Merely 'deleting' from your mail viewing application will not stop this cycle. 'Block sender' fails because it only blocks that specific sender & once the 'bots' discover your address, all they have to do is change a single character of the senders name, and they start getting their junk through again (depending on your filtering settings).



You want to end the notification of a valid address, from the Mail Server (your ISP).

Get a program that will 'preview' all mail while it's still on the server, and 'bounce' selected mail back to the spam sender ; in effect saying, 'This address is invalid' and they eventually stop sending junk. (Not instantly, but it's a start).



Also, never 'click here to unsubscribe' or send ANY form of communication back to them: it only verifies that a live person is on your end of things.



Try 'Mailwasher' Free, for 1 POP3 mail account. Upgradeable for multiple POP3's & web based mail.

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/comm/fwspam.html

(Other applications available here also.)

A well know & trusted site.

Answer 2

if you have a freebie email service, like hot-mail or yahoo you can't, but if you have and email address with your ISP there is a software program called MailWasher Pro, where you can establish a friends list and a black list, includes filters to search for specific words in the body or head and footers of email. You used to be able to bounce the email back to the sender as well to say you email address doesn't exist, but spamer's have smartened up. it still has that facility but, or for a fee you can forward unwanted mails to Spam Cop.

I have been using it since it was a gold coin donation, but has grown,in conjunction with that you have another program called Benign, which is an email encryption program also quite useful.

you can download and trial it for 30 days before you buy. Once you buy Pro you have it for life along with updates etc. Well worth it.

Hope it Helps

Answer 3

View and copy the full headers of each email. Send a copy of each email along with a pasted copy of the headers to [e-mail]

This is the only way to stop them.

Answer 4

Just use your head.

If it looks bad - it is.

if it looks too good to be true - It is

if its some Nigerian trying to sell you something or get you to be a banker for them and you think its a bad idea - it Is.



If you get msgs from your friends and it has a link and that link looks bad - it is.



get the idea?

Answer 5

no no no no no.....do not fall for it.....these are people from over seas and if they get your money there is nothing our government can do for you......dont do it....beware of any emails like this....but them in a blocked email list in email options...most of the time if you write back the email address doesn't work......IT NOT WORTH YOUR TIME.

Answer 6

Stuff like that, just delete or send to spam. It won't harm you if it's sent as long as you don't open it.

Answer 7

haha i agree with comment above.



check e-mail settings or download a virus protection programme that will stop those scams

Answer 8

Start with your email security options. And just be careful what you open. Its pretty obvious.

Answer 9

Really you should not open spam.It COULD be filled with viruses,etc.

Answer 10

just delete all that crap its all a scam, they won't do any harm unless your dumb enough to answer.