Welcome back - here's today's featured article:
by: Jowyne Leong
Prevention is always better cure. In order to avoid data loss situation, you could observe the following steps:
1. Use an Anti Virus software and keep it updated
Antivirus is designed to protect you and your computer against malicious computer virus. Some virus infections can delete, modify your data secretly and cause your computer to crash. So be sure to update your Antivirus software with the latest patch and signature files for maximum security.
2. Protect against power surges with an UPS
An uninterruptible power supply protects your computer and data during a power surge or failure. The spare battery in the UPS gives you ample time to save your documents and shut down Windows properly so that you don't lose any files or damage any hardware components.
3. Keep your machine in a dry, shaded and dust-free area
Never leave your computer near places where it is directly exposed to rain, sun or humidity. Such conditions have the tendency to cause rusting and damage to your hardware parts.
4. Do not attempt to repair or open up your computer without assistance
Without experience, you may damage the circuit boards, hardware components and worst of all, receive a nasty electric shock! Always consult an expert.
5. Do not over-tweak your system
Avoid modifying your system registry or overclock your hardware to yield performance boost unless you're absolutely sure of what you're doing. You don't wish to fry your computer.
6. Store your backups at an off-site location
This helps to protect your backup from damage in case of a fire or disaster.
7. Avoid moving your computer when it is in operation
You definitely would not wish for your power cord to fall off and cause a data corruption and physical damage to your hard disk such as a head crash while working on a project.
8. Do not share access to your computer with strangers on the network
Your computer data can be prone to theft and modification if anyone on the network can access your files freely.
9. Practise disk maintenance
Clean up temporary files, unused files and defragment your hard disk from time to time. This helps to keep your hard disk on top form.
10. Read failure symptoms
You know it's time to start backing up all your data files when your hard disk starts producing funny noises and your system starts getting cranky.
Jowyne Leong
About The Author
Adroit Data Recovery Centre (ADRC) Pte Ltd is the data recovery expert established since 1998. Headquartered in Singapore and Malaysia, we recover data for customers from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam.
adrc.net
ss2@adrc.net
**Get a money-making mall FREE! Click here:
http://www.mypowermall.com/Biz/Home/30831
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
Off-Page Factors Affecting Your Position On Google Searches
Welcome back - here's today's featured article:
by: John Fowler
Different search engines use different algorithms to calculate where you appear on their search results. This article will focus on the factors that we believe affect your results on Google searches. One word of warning, Google does not publish its algorithms and is constantly changing and updating the way it views sites - so these are the guidelines for you to follow, rather than a definitive statement of the processes involved.
We will divide the major factors into two main types, namely, on-page and off-page factors. Basically, on-page factors are those things that you can do to improve your ranking by adapting the actual coding of your site. Off-page factors are those factors mainly relating to incoming links to your site. This article, the second of two will focus on off-page factors.
In terms of off-page factors the areas we will cover are:
IBLs – inbound links to your site
Directory Listings – which directories feature your site
User Statistics – who visits your site and for how long
Inbound Links (IBLs)
Many of you may not be aware that many sites may be linking to your own site and sending new users and traffic to you. You can check who links to your site using an IBL checker, like the backlink checker that can be found on the free SEO Tools site www.datacoms.co.uk.
These checkers allow you to see which sites have linked to you as identified by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Interesting, the Google list is always smaller and more quirky than the other two. This is because Google has decided that pure volume of links is not a good measure of a site’s attractiveness since this metric can be spammed by the use of links farms, where unscrupulous webmasters can buy loads of links for free.
So Google uses other factors to check your site’s IBLs, and one of these is certainly pagerank. The concept of pagerank was developed by Google to rank sites across the web on a number of factors that overall aim to show how attractive a site is to potential viewers. Your site will have a pagerank, even if you don’t know about it. Again you can check your pagerank for free at www.datacoms.co.uk.
Sites with a pagerank or PR of 4 or more are considered worthy sites by Google and so a link from a site with PR 4 or above is more important to your site’s overall ranking. PR starts at 0 and goes to 10, with only sites like Microsoft, Apple, Google or NASA getting a perfect 10.
It is also very useful to get sites to link to you with consistent anchor text; this is the text description of your sites URL. So we try and use SEO Gurus for all out links, but some sites seem to take pleasure in changing this for us. The point is the more consistent the anchor text is the better you will be found. The old example of keying "miserable failure" into Google is a good one to demonstrate the power of consistent anchor text. This search gives George Bush’s biography on the Whitehouse site – no mention of "miserable failure" on the site, but it has many sites linking to it using those words as anchor text.
So try and get lots of sites of PR 4 or above linking to you, especially if the site has a similar theme to your own site. However, don’t grow your links too fast as Google sees this as spammy, and try and avoid reciprocal links where possible (these are links where each site agrees to link to each other). The best way to get links is with consistently good, well-written content that interests people.
Directory Listings
There are many directory listings sites on the internet, but some are much more important than others, because they are big and powerful with a high PR. Top of the list must be DMOZ, with a PR of 9. Also known as the Open Directory Project, DMOZ, is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. It gets the name DMOZ from the acronym for Directory Mozilla, as it is administered by Netscape Communication Corporation. It costs you nothing to get your site onto DMOZ, except blood, sweat and tears – see www.datacoms.co.uk for more details. DMOZ is important because it is one of the places Google looks when deciding the importance of your site. Hence, a listing on DMOZ almost guarantees better search results performance.
Yahoo is probably the second most important listing, but costs $299 a year to list your site, again a PR of 9. There are many other sites, far too many to mention, that may be useful to you. Some are free, others ask for reciprocal links or a payment. It pays to be selective on your links and we have as yet not paid for any links. Interestingly, even without paying Yahoo you can get high on their searches if you have a listing on DMOZ, so worth persevering.
User Statistics
Google has developed a number of measures to record the amount of visitors your site and individual pages visited. How did they get there (keyword searches), what pages did they visit, how much time did they spend on each page, did they bookmark the site, etc.
After all, a true measure of where you should appear on the search results is how popular and interestingly your site is. The only real way you can have this is by having interesting, or in marketing jargon, “sticky” content. Many sites are trying to add news feeds, puzzles or quotes of the day to try and achieve a greater degree of stickiness. But, in our opinion the reason people come back to your site has to be the quality and quantity of information that you have presented and organised for easy access by them.
Content is king, long live content!
About The Author
John Fowler trained as a Mathematician and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via SEO Gurus http://www.seo-gurus.co.uk.
**Get a money-making shopping mall FREE! Click here:
http://www.mypowermall.com/Biz/Home/30831
by: John Fowler
Different search engines use different algorithms to calculate where you appear on their search results. This article will focus on the factors that we believe affect your results on Google searches. One word of warning, Google does not publish its algorithms and is constantly changing and updating the way it views sites - so these are the guidelines for you to follow, rather than a definitive statement of the processes involved.
We will divide the major factors into two main types, namely, on-page and off-page factors. Basically, on-page factors are those things that you can do to improve your ranking by adapting the actual coding of your site. Off-page factors are those factors mainly relating to incoming links to your site. This article, the second of two will focus on off-page factors.
In terms of off-page factors the areas we will cover are:
IBLs – inbound links to your site
Directory Listings – which directories feature your site
User Statistics – who visits your site and for how long
Inbound Links (IBLs)
Many of you may not be aware that many sites may be linking to your own site and sending new users and traffic to you. You can check who links to your site using an IBL checker, like the backlink checker that can be found on the free SEO Tools site www.datacoms.co.uk.
These checkers allow you to see which sites have linked to you as identified by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Interesting, the Google list is always smaller and more quirky than the other two. This is because Google has decided that pure volume of links is not a good measure of a site’s attractiveness since this metric can be spammed by the use of links farms, where unscrupulous webmasters can buy loads of links for free.
So Google uses other factors to check your site’s IBLs, and one of these is certainly pagerank. The concept of pagerank was developed by Google to rank sites across the web on a number of factors that overall aim to show how attractive a site is to potential viewers. Your site will have a pagerank, even if you don’t know about it. Again you can check your pagerank for free at www.datacoms.co.uk.
Sites with a pagerank or PR of 4 or more are considered worthy sites by Google and so a link from a site with PR 4 or above is more important to your site’s overall ranking. PR starts at 0 and goes to 10, with only sites like Microsoft, Apple, Google or NASA getting a perfect 10.
It is also very useful to get sites to link to you with consistent anchor text; this is the text description of your sites URL. So we try and use SEO Gurus for all out links, but some sites seem to take pleasure in changing this for us. The point is the more consistent the anchor text is the better you will be found. The old example of keying "miserable failure" into Google is a good one to demonstrate the power of consistent anchor text. This search gives George Bush’s biography on the Whitehouse site – no mention of "miserable failure" on the site, but it has many sites linking to it using those words as anchor text.
So try and get lots of sites of PR 4 or above linking to you, especially if the site has a similar theme to your own site. However, don’t grow your links too fast as Google sees this as spammy, and try and avoid reciprocal links where possible (these are links where each site agrees to link to each other). The best way to get links is with consistently good, well-written content that interests people.
Directory Listings
There are many directory listings sites on the internet, but some are much more important than others, because they are big and powerful with a high PR. Top of the list must be DMOZ, with a PR of 9. Also known as the Open Directory Project, DMOZ, is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. It gets the name DMOZ from the acronym for Directory Mozilla, as it is administered by Netscape Communication Corporation. It costs you nothing to get your site onto DMOZ, except blood, sweat and tears – see www.datacoms.co.uk for more details. DMOZ is important because it is one of the places Google looks when deciding the importance of your site. Hence, a listing on DMOZ almost guarantees better search results performance.
Yahoo is probably the second most important listing, but costs $299 a year to list your site, again a PR of 9. There are many other sites, far too many to mention, that may be useful to you. Some are free, others ask for reciprocal links or a payment. It pays to be selective on your links and we have as yet not paid for any links. Interestingly, even without paying Yahoo you can get high on their searches if you have a listing on DMOZ, so worth persevering.
User Statistics
Google has developed a number of measures to record the amount of visitors your site and individual pages visited. How did they get there (keyword searches), what pages did they visit, how much time did they spend on each page, did they bookmark the site, etc.
After all, a true measure of where you should appear on the search results is how popular and interestingly your site is. The only real way you can have this is by having interesting, or in marketing jargon, “sticky” content. Many sites are trying to add news feeds, puzzles or quotes of the day to try and achieve a greater degree of stickiness. But, in our opinion the reason people come back to your site has to be the quality and quantity of information that you have presented and organised for easy access by them.
Content is king, long live content!
About The Author
John Fowler trained as a Mathematician and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via SEO Gurus http://www.seo-gurus.co.uk.
**Get a money-making shopping mall FREE! Click here:
http://www.mypowermall.com/Biz/Home/30831
Friday, September 7, 2007
How To Identify Spoof/Phishing Emails - Protect Yourself From Identity Theft
Welcome back - here's today's featured article:
by: Dan Thompson
What is a spoof email?
Spoof emails (sometimes also called "Phishing") are emails that pretend to be from a company or bank. The most common often come from eBay, PayPal, Barclays Bank etc. These emails will then contain a web link, if you click on this link then you will be taken to a login page and asked to enter your details. Most of these scammers go a long way to try and get your details, most spoof emails contain links to identical websites and users are tricked into entering their personal information. If you submit your information through one of these spoof websites then the fraudster has all of your details and can commit crimes using your identity.
How do they get my email address?
You may wonder how the scammers got your address or knew you were a member of a particular bank or institution. Often it is just good luck on the part of the scammers. They normally do not target individuals, but send out thousands of scam emails to randomly generated email addresses, in the hope that just a few will be successful. They also trawl the web for valid addresses they can use, and swap this information with each other. If you have ever posted on an Internet forum or published something on the web, there's a good chance your address is out there somewhere just waiting to be found. If you have fallen victim before, your address is normally added to a list of 'easy victims', and you are likely to then receive even more scams.
^^^^^^
3000 channels for your PC! Satellite TV for PC
http://tinyurl.com/2rv59g
^^^^^^
How can I identify these emails?
Here are 4 simple tests that you can perform on any email you suspect is a spoof. Your email can only pass the test if it passes ALL FOUR of the tests. If your email passes all of the four tests then you can be 99.9% certain that it is a genuine email. If your email passes all four of the tests then we would also advise you to check the "Other Tips" section just to double check that your email is genuine.
If your email fails
If your email fails JUST ONE of the four tests then the email is a spoof and shouldn't be replied to and should be deleted immediately from your computer. Even if your email fails the test, I would still advise you to check out the "Other Tips" page for more good ways to spot a spoof email.
If you are still in doubt
Unless you are 100% sure that your email is genuine, DO NOT click on any links within the email. Contact the company in question (See the "reporting a spoof" page) and ask them to confirm if the email is genuine or a spoof.
^^^^^^
Enhance your PC. Enhance your life! Let RegCure reveal your PC’s true potential.
http://tinyurl.com/23v7bg
^^^^^
Test 1 - Who is the email addressed to?
Have a look at how the email addresses you. Most spoofs will say something along the lines of "Dear eBay user". This is the very first thing you should look for in a spoof email. Any email that doesn't address you by your name is a spoof. Ebay, PayPal and banks always address you by the name you registered with on their site, they NEVER send out emails saying
"Dear valued customer", "Dear member" etc.
If your email isn't addressed to you personally then it is a spoof! If your email is addressed to you then move onto the next test to see if it is a spoof email. Some more advanced spoof messages have started to include your name or email address instead of the generic "Dear member" or "Dear user". So even if your email were addressed to you I would strongly advise you to carry out the 3 other tests.
Test 2 - Where does the link go?
Most spoof emails will contain a link telling you to verify your details. You can quickly tell if your email is a spoof by hovering your mouse over the link. When your mouse is over the link, look in the bottom left hand corner of your screen and you will see the "link destination". The destination of a spoof link will usually look something like this:
"http://slp.clinker.net.mx/.sh/.a/index.htm?SignIn&ssPageName=h:h:sin:us"
Compare this with a real eBay link:
http://k2b-bulk.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyeBaySellingSummary
And you can see the difference. You can easily check if you email is a fake by looking at the first part of the link destination, if the destination is a combination of numbers (102.382.54.23) or a link like the one in my spoof link above then the chances are that your email is a spoof.
Any non-spoof link will contain the name of the company in the first part of the link, eg:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk http://cgi.ebay.com http://cgi.paypal.com
Please note: Some spoof links will contain the words "eBay" or "PayPal" in the final part of the link. These are also spoofs!
All real emails will only contain the company name in the very first part of the link; after http://. If you still aren't sure if you have a spoof email, move onto the next test.
Test 3 - Who really did send you the email?
This test may seem a little confusing but don't worry it isn't as difficult as it looks. What we are going to do is find out where the email came from. Most people don't know this but you can trace the origin of your emails in most mail programs. To do this we have to view the "FULL message header", here is how you do this in the following email programs. If your program isn't listed here please contact your email provider for instructions:
Hotmail 1. Click on "Options" 2. Click on "Mail display settings" 3. The 3rd option can be used to display the header settings, select "Full" from the check boxes 4. Click on "OK" to save your settings
Outlook Express 1. Right click on the email and select "Properties" 2. Select the "Details" tab
Now that we can view the message headers, here is how you identify a spoof:
Look in the part of the header that says "Received From". If the email has come from anyone other than the sender it's a spoof. I had a spoof email and performed this test and notice that the email had been sent from a Yahoo account. Obviously a real email from eBay would not have been sent from a Yahoo address!
Test 4 - Click on the link
Only try this if your email has passed the previous 3 tests. Some spoof emails have been known to contain viruses that are activated by clicking on the link. Please ensure that you have a good virus scanner installed on your PC before proceeding. If you have important data on your PC you may also wish to backup that data on a removable backup device.
When you click the link in your email a web browser will open and take you to what looks like a legitimate login page. There are two ways to identify a spoof login page, and I will show you both of them! Have a look in the address bar at the top of the login page. Have a look at the http:// part of the URL. Any genuine login page from eBay, PayPal or your bank WONT start with "http://" it will start with:
"https://"
The "s" in https:// stands for "secure" and is there to show you that you are about to submit data over a secure connection.
Any page not starting with https:// is a spoof. The second difference between the two pages is the padlock icon in the bottom right hand of the screen. Notice that the spoof login page doesn't have a padlock, and the genuine eBay login page does. This padlock appears to show you that you are about to submit data over a secure connection. If your login page DOESNT have a padlock icon in the bottom corner of the screen then it is a spoof!
Other Tips for spotting Spoofs
1. Punctuation Read your email carefully and look for any spelling mistakes. You can be sure that any genuine emails wont contain simple spelling mistakes.
2. Adverts? Real emails from eBay don't contain adverts for burger king!
3. Hotmail identity check A new feature in hotmail now warns you if a senderID could not be verified. Any spoof email will contain this warning. (please note that recently I received a genuine email from eBay that contained this warning, so don't judge an email purely by this method)
4. PIN number Any website asking for your PIN (personal identification number) is a spoof. Do not enter your PIN number! If you have entered and submitted your PIN then contact your bank immediately.
5. Popup boxes Some spoof sites will include popup message boxes like the one below. Genuine sites don't use popup boxes telling you to enter details.
6. False sense of urgency Most spoof emails will make you think that your account is at threat if you don't act quickly. This is not the case.
7. eBay Messages Any genuine email sent to you from eBay will also appear in the "My Messages" section of eBay. To access your eBay messages, login to ebay and click on "My eBay". On the left hand side of the screen you will see a "My Messages" link. Click on this; if the email you received in your inbox isn't listed there then it is a spoof email.
8. Ignore the email address Ignore the email address that the email was sent from. Almost all spoof emails will appear as if they are from a genuine address. Some of the emails I receive are "from":
service@paypal.com memberservices@paypal.com awconfirm@ebay.com safeharbour@ebay.com operator_862736743@halifax.com
9. Download the eBay toolbar The eBay toolbar is a great piece of software that can be used to spot spoofs. As soon as you enter a spoof website from eBay or PayPal the toolbar will give you a warning telling you that web page is a spoof. The Ebay toolbar is FREE to download.
Dan Thompson has been creating websites for over 7 years. You can visit his website and receive 6 free e-books, check out the website on http://www.elpassobooks.co.uk
About The Author
Dan Thompson has been designing and running websites for over 7 years. You can visit his current website to obtain some free e-books at http://www.elpassobooks.co.uk
**Get a money-making mall FREE! Click here:
http://www.mypowermall.com/Biz/Home/30831
by: Dan Thompson
What is a spoof email?
Spoof emails (sometimes also called "Phishing") are emails that pretend to be from a company or bank. The most common often come from eBay, PayPal, Barclays Bank etc. These emails will then contain a web link, if you click on this link then you will be taken to a login page and asked to enter your details. Most of these scammers go a long way to try and get your details, most spoof emails contain links to identical websites and users are tricked into entering their personal information. If you submit your information through one of these spoof websites then the fraudster has all of your details and can commit crimes using your identity.
How do they get my email address?
You may wonder how the scammers got your address or knew you were a member of a particular bank or institution. Often it is just good luck on the part of the scammers. They normally do not target individuals, but send out thousands of scam emails to randomly generated email addresses, in the hope that just a few will be successful. They also trawl the web for valid addresses they can use, and swap this information with each other. If you have ever posted on an Internet forum or published something on the web, there's a good chance your address is out there somewhere just waiting to be found. If you have fallen victim before, your address is normally added to a list of 'easy victims', and you are likely to then receive even more scams.
^^^^^^
3000 channels for your PC! Satellite TV for PC
http://tinyurl.com/2rv59g
^^^^^^
How can I identify these emails?
Here are 4 simple tests that you can perform on any email you suspect is a spoof. Your email can only pass the test if it passes ALL FOUR of the tests. If your email passes all of the four tests then you can be 99.9% certain that it is a genuine email. If your email passes all four of the tests then we would also advise you to check the "Other Tips" section just to double check that your email is genuine.
If your email fails
If your email fails JUST ONE of the four tests then the email is a spoof and shouldn't be replied to and should be deleted immediately from your computer. Even if your email fails the test, I would still advise you to check out the "Other Tips" page for more good ways to spot a spoof email.
If you are still in doubt
Unless you are 100% sure that your email is genuine, DO NOT click on any links within the email. Contact the company in question (See the "reporting a spoof" page) and ask them to confirm if the email is genuine or a spoof.
^^^^^^
Enhance your PC. Enhance your life! Let RegCure reveal your PC’s true potential.
http://tinyurl.com/23v7bg
^^^^^
Test 1 - Who is the email addressed to?
Have a look at how the email addresses you. Most spoofs will say something along the lines of "Dear eBay user". This is the very first thing you should look for in a spoof email. Any email that doesn't address you by your name is a spoof. Ebay, PayPal and banks always address you by the name you registered with on their site, they NEVER send out emails saying
"Dear valued customer", "Dear member" etc.
If your email isn't addressed to you personally then it is a spoof! If your email is addressed to you then move onto the next test to see if it is a spoof email. Some more advanced spoof messages have started to include your name or email address instead of the generic "Dear member" or "Dear user". So even if your email were addressed to you I would strongly advise you to carry out the 3 other tests.
Test 2 - Where does the link go?
Most spoof emails will contain a link telling you to verify your details. You can quickly tell if your email is a spoof by hovering your mouse over the link. When your mouse is over the link, look in the bottom left hand corner of your screen and you will see the "link destination". The destination of a spoof link will usually look something like this:
"http://slp.clinker.net.mx/.sh/.a/index.htm?SignIn&ssPageName=h:h:sin:us"
Compare this with a real eBay link:
http://k2b-bulk.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyeBaySellingSummary
And you can see the difference. You can easily check if you email is a fake by looking at the first part of the link destination, if the destination is a combination of numbers (102.382.54.23) or a link like the one in my spoof link above then the chances are that your email is a spoof.
Any non-spoof link will contain the name of the company in the first part of the link, eg:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk http://cgi.ebay.com http://cgi.paypal.com
Please note: Some spoof links will contain the words "eBay" or "PayPal" in the final part of the link. These are also spoofs!
All real emails will only contain the company name in the very first part of the link; after http://. If you still aren't sure if you have a spoof email, move onto the next test.
Test 3 - Who really did send you the email?
This test may seem a little confusing but don't worry it isn't as difficult as it looks. What we are going to do is find out where the email came from. Most people don't know this but you can trace the origin of your emails in most mail programs. To do this we have to view the "FULL message header", here is how you do this in the following email programs. If your program isn't listed here please contact your email provider for instructions:
Hotmail 1. Click on "Options" 2. Click on "Mail display settings" 3. The 3rd option can be used to display the header settings, select "Full" from the check boxes 4. Click on "OK" to save your settings
Outlook Express 1. Right click on the email and select "Properties" 2. Select the "Details" tab
Now that we can view the message headers, here is how you identify a spoof:
Look in the part of the header that says "Received From". If the email has come from anyone other than the sender it's a spoof. I had a spoof email and performed this test and notice that the email had been sent from a Yahoo account. Obviously a real email from eBay would not have been sent from a Yahoo address!
Test 4 - Click on the link
Only try this if your email has passed the previous 3 tests. Some spoof emails have been known to contain viruses that are activated by clicking on the link. Please ensure that you have a good virus scanner installed on your PC before proceeding. If you have important data on your PC you may also wish to backup that data on a removable backup device.
When you click the link in your email a web browser will open and take you to what looks like a legitimate login page. There are two ways to identify a spoof login page, and I will show you both of them! Have a look in the address bar at the top of the login page. Have a look at the http:// part of the URL. Any genuine login page from eBay, PayPal or your bank WONT start with "http://" it will start with:
"https://"
The "s" in https:// stands for "secure" and is there to show you that you are about to submit data over a secure connection.
Any page not starting with https:// is a spoof. The second difference between the two pages is the padlock icon in the bottom right hand of the screen. Notice that the spoof login page doesn't have a padlock, and the genuine eBay login page does. This padlock appears to show you that you are about to submit data over a secure connection. If your login page DOESNT have a padlock icon in the bottom corner of the screen then it is a spoof!
Other Tips for spotting Spoofs
1. Punctuation Read your email carefully and look for any spelling mistakes. You can be sure that any genuine emails wont contain simple spelling mistakes.
2. Adverts? Real emails from eBay don't contain adverts for burger king!
3. Hotmail identity check A new feature in hotmail now warns you if a senderID could not be verified. Any spoof email will contain this warning. (please note that recently I received a genuine email from eBay that contained this warning, so don't judge an email purely by this method)
4. PIN number Any website asking for your PIN (personal identification number) is a spoof. Do not enter your PIN number! If you have entered and submitted your PIN then contact your bank immediately.
5. Popup boxes Some spoof sites will include popup message boxes like the one below. Genuine sites don't use popup boxes telling you to enter details.
6. False sense of urgency Most spoof emails will make you think that your account is at threat if you don't act quickly. This is not the case.
7. eBay Messages Any genuine email sent to you from eBay will also appear in the "My Messages" section of eBay. To access your eBay messages, login to ebay and click on "My eBay". On the left hand side of the screen you will see a "My Messages" link. Click on this; if the email you received in your inbox isn't listed there then it is a spoof email.
8. Ignore the email address Ignore the email address that the email was sent from. Almost all spoof emails will appear as if they are from a genuine address. Some of the emails I receive are "from":
service@paypal.com memberservices@paypal.com awconfirm@ebay.com safeharbour@ebay.com operator_862736743@halifax.com
9. Download the eBay toolbar The eBay toolbar is a great piece of software that can be used to spot spoofs. As soon as you enter a spoof website from eBay or PayPal the toolbar will give you a warning telling you that web page is a spoof. The Ebay toolbar is FREE to download.
Dan Thompson has been creating websites for over 7 years. You can visit his website and receive 6 free e-books, check out the website on http://www.elpassobooks.co.uk
About The Author
Dan Thompson has been designing and running websites for over 7 years. You can visit his current website to obtain some free e-books at http://www.elpassobooks.co.uk
**Get a money-making mall FREE! Click here:
http://www.mypowermall.com/Biz/Home/30831
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