Anti-spam and scam precautions
Scams
Please be very aware of e-mail scams,
which purport to be genuine authorities wanting your personal
details to be able to send you some promised wealth,
etc. Banks or building societies, even HMRC are favourite
decoys. Have you ever know the tax man to give you money back
and by e-mail.
A simple way to spot these scams is if instead of
your name in the address line it is blank or is sent to undisclosed
recipients. Also look for poor spelling and grammar, which is a reliable give-away that it is from a dodgy
source. The usual ploy is asking for you to click on a
link or to download some form or other. Do not do it.
Often hovering over a link or url in these e-mail (without
clicking on it) will reveal the true origin, usually ending
with a foreign country code rather than .co.uk or .com, etc.
In any event immediately mark it as junk without
opening it. Never open any link in the e-mail or any
attachment that is with it, as these are the virus carriers. They
may not damage your pc but they may install a key stroke
logger that could record any of your confidential information
and send it to the scammers.
A genuine authority, such as your bank
or building society, etc will only contact you by sending
direct to your named e-mail address and they will use your
agreed title and name in the body of the e-mail text and only with your prior
authority to make contact with that chosen e-mail
address. If in doubt forward the e-mail as
is, to the appropriate bank or building society or HMRC security
contact, a link for whom can usually be found on their
own web sites, or ask at the bank, etc.
Even so ensure the web site is
genuine as scammers will often copy over a logo to make the
site look genuine and ask you to login or input other confidential information. As a measure of confidence a
web site is genuine it will have a URL (web address)
beginning https:\\... and there will be a locked lock symbol
somewhere on the page at the top or bottom. Beware of any
URL that does not appear to match the site you are trying to
reach.
Spam
Due to the increasing amount of spam
that people are receiving, probably due to web-spiders or
robots trawling our site for overt e-mail addresses it has been
necessary to introduce some simple precautions, irritating as they
may be.
Whenever you click on an e-mail link on our web-site and
after your e-mail application opens, you must change NOSPAM in the mail-to address
line to an @ symbol before you send the message or it will not send.
Help
In the event you are troubled by unwanted e-mails you can
invoke SpamCop. Go to their web-site at http://www.spamcop.com/ ,
where you can report pests to an investigator who will attempt
to sort them out for you and/or you can download a free spam
filter. There is also http://www.spamcop.net/
which requires registration to use.
The UK government watchdogs are typical Quangos and I have
found them most ineffective. All red tape and no help at all. If you want to forward your spam
e-mails to them also, these are the addresses. The Information
Office is mail@gsi.gov.uk
and
The Compliance Office is compliance@ico.gsi.gov.uk
. You don't need to change the @ for these ones.
These agencies are supposed to regulate
unsolicited advertising and e-selling, but they say they are
limited to UK spammers. Their opinion of people asking for
your bank details so they can donate great riches is that they
are asking for help, not trying to con you. They also want you
to fill in a form for every mail submitted. I suggest you
politely tell them, as I did, what to do with their ruddy forms.
Finally invest in a good anti-virus application. AVG is an
example - http://free.avg.com/ww-en/homepage This
link allows you to download a free version or to pay for a
more advanced version. Other anti-virus applications are
available free or to buy.
We have no control over and cannot therefore be
held responsible for the content of other web-sites that may
be linked to directly or indirectly from our
pages.
If you have any comments or
questions regarding our policies please contact us by email by
clicking here
.
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