{"id":4830,"date":"2012-10-04T16:05:33","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T20:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=4830"},"modified":"2012-10-04T16:05:41","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T20:05:41","slug":"be-careful-what-names-you-use-for-your-email-addresses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/be-careful-what-names-you-use-for-your-email-addresses\/","title":{"rendered":"Be careful what names you use for your email addresses"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This tip was suggested by Mary who wrote: “I received an email that others my also be receiving and thought you may consider including a warning in the newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n

The email appeared to be from PayPal. The salutation even had my correct name–not Dear Customer or similar. At the bottom was a place indicating I received the notice because I had opted to receive emails from PayPal. There was a link to click to unsubscribe. It really looked quite authentic.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was stating that my credit card information needed to be updated. I knew this was not so, but I did go to the legitimate PayPal site to verify my account information. I did report the incident to PayPal and did forward the email to them.<\/em><\/p>\n

These crooks are getting more clever in disguising their emails. As I said, this one did look quite authentic. The email address given was, on a quick look, the same as the PayPal email. So, all the more reason to never click email links, but to go to site—bank, PayPal, etc.–yourself.\u00a0Sorry about the length of this note. Mary”<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s so important these days to keep your name out of your email addresses.<\/p>\n

Let’s say your name is Frank K. Brown. Don’t make an email address like frankbrown@whatever.com or fkbrown@whatever.com — because if you do it doesn’t take a smart crook to address the email to :<\/p>\n

Dear F K Brown or Dear Frank Brown.<\/p>\n

If you choose an email like silverfoxx@whatever.com, watch what happens:<\/p>\n

Dear Silver Foxx.<\/p>\n

Do you see what we mean. You don’t have a bank account or a PayPal account under the name Silver Flowers but you may have one using Frank K. Brown or F. K. Brown.<\/p>\n

This simple tip can help you quickly identify fraudulent emails with out looking beyond the email’s greeting. And of course, Mary is right that another good tip off to a fraudulent email is the ubiquitous “Dear Valued Customer” or “Dear Customer”.<\/p>\n

Mary had her name as part of her email address and this is how the crooks made that PayPal email look so authentic.<\/p>\n

Do yourself a favor… create an email address (HotMail, Yahoo, Gmail, Gmx, your ISP account) using something different than your name or part of your name — then change your email address with any online stores or financial \/ bank accounts to the one you created. If you have an email account like TuquoiseBay22@whatever.com and the phishers are really smart, the next phishing email will be esay to spot:<\/p>\n

Dear Turquoise Bay (or Dear Valued Customer, if they’re not so bright) and any fraudulent emails puporting to be from a site where money changes hands – will be very easy to spot.<\/p>\n

Do not ever use your name or parts of your name as your email address when creating an email address. And if you already have, make a new email account without your name or part of your name and change all your account with banks, PayPal, online stock brokerages, and online shopping accounts to your new address. It will make fraudulent emails easier to spot and therefore you’ll be less likely to be fooled.<\/p>\n

Thanks for your question Mary, this tip should help many more easily spot fraudulent emails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This tip was suggested by Mary who wrote: “I received an email that others my also be receiving and thought you may consider including a warning in the newsletter. The email appeared to be from PayPal. The salutation even had my correct name–not Dear Customer or similar. At the bottom was a place indicating I received the notice\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1461,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4833,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions\/4833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}