|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Online Cell Phone Scams and SpamThey're out there. Individuals trying to make a quick buck at your expense. You labour hours on end to produce quality content on your website only to get repetitive requests for huge numbers of product or promises for the greatest deals online. As a webmaster for a cell phone and PDA site, I've had my share of spam and scams come through, mostly via email, some posted on my forum. The purpose of this article is to provide a few methods of detecting spam and scams, and provide a few examples as well. Take a look over and protect yourself from online cellular fraud.Anybody catch the 60 minutes episode where Andy Rooney teaches faithful viewers how to detect junk mail? Junk email works in much the same way. Items with subject headings ‘Great deal', or ‘limited time offer' usually can wait, and definitely don't have great offers hidden inside. Webmasters and consumers should have a golden rule, if you don't know where an offer came from (you don't know the sender) then delete it. Plain and simple. Most free email accounts, GMAIL, Hotmail, Yahoo!, have good filters that label incoming spam and scams as, well, spam. However, the majority of webmasters do not use free email accounts for the sake of professionalism. To these individuals, a basic virus detector usually includes email protection and generally will detect possible spam items before they hit your box. Having said this, if you're doing link campaigns, or joining forums, etc., in order to promote your site, it may not be a bad idea to enlist the free online email account and prevent all the unwanted junk from hitting your work emails. It's been my experience that some people out there hand pick contact pages of potential victims, and therefore the email may be somewhat individualised to your site. Your name, the site name, or similar content, may be communicated within the email making it appear somewhat legitimate. Be mindful of your email accounts (contact pages) that are exposed to the world wide web. Some smart scammers have created bots that will automatically harvest emails that are sitting live on the web and input them into a spam list. Remember this when trying to determine whether something from the web is legit. If an questionable email has contact information, Google it. If it's a legitimate company contacting you, they should have some type of online presence. I've noticed that the majority of spam and scams have fake mail addresses, but no online address. Furthermore, emails usually come from online web accounts like Yahoo!. Not only can you search contact information, you can serach content as well. Chances are a webmaster has posted the contents on a forum somewhere wondering about its legitimacy. I can't stress this enough, take 4 seconds and doabout the email before you consider replying. With these simple and quick tips you should be able to identify the majority of scam and spam emails. If in doubt, delete. If something was important that you deleted, or legitimate, the individual will likely try to contact you again. With this in mind, here are some examples of spam and scam emails from the cellular and technology industry, my comments are in brackets. Subject: WE HAVE LOTS OF GSM/NEXTEL MOBILE PHONES AT VERY CHEAP PRICES'''''''' [The subject always varies.] PHONES SELLERS INCORPORATED 12 Ademola drive,ikoyi Lagos Nigeria [Many, many, many emails have come with Nigeria as the purported origin, doesn't mean it's from there, but out of country addresses are always suspect of being fraudulent.] Dear Sir/Ma, LETTER OF BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP. We are mobile phones wholesalers.We deals on all brands and models of mobile phones such as Nokia,Motorola,Samsung and many more at very cheap prices. We are using this medium to look for buyers of mobile phones.Do kindly reply back if you are interested and as you do you will be glad you do,thank's and God bless. God bless. Fola David President. [A variation of the above is instead of written body content, they will actually send a product list of the cell phones they require asking for a dozen of each. Sounds like great business!...Here's the next one] CONSOLIDATED PHONES LIMITED 152, OZORUMBA MBADIWE STREET OFF KINGSWAY ROAD. VICTORY ISLAND LAGOS, [no record of this address] TEL: 0803-3870-694 FAX: 1- 817-0845, [not even a real number] Email:consphones_ltd@seeqmail.com. [bad domain] or consphone@galmail.co.za Dear sir, COMMERCIAL SALE OF BULK MOBILE PHONES WE ARE EXPORTERS AND IMPORTERS OF GSM, TDMA, AND CDMA PHONES. [CDMA Phones do not run the majority of African networks.] WE ARE ONE OF THE LEADING COMPANIES IN NIGERIAN COMMUNICATIONS SECTOR, AND WE GIVE OUT OUR BEST IN SATISFYING OUR NUMEROUS CUSTORMERS. WE SELL IN BULK AND AT A VERY CHEAP RATE. WE WILL LIKE TO USE THIS MEDIUM TO INTRODUCE TO YOU OUR VARIOUS PHONE BRANDS AND ACCESSORIES LISTED IN OUR PRICE LIST. THESE ITEMS ARE READY FOR SALE AND THE PRICE LIST IS AS GIVEN BELOW. WE WILL BE WAITING AND READY TO ASSIST YOU IN ANY INFORMATION REQUIRED BY YOU, AND ALSO, WE ARE READY TO DO BUSINESS WITH ANY COMPANY, INDIVIDUALS OR GROUP AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT FRAUDULENT. [Of course you wouldn't.] WE WILL SEND OUR RANGE OF PRODUCTS AND PRICE LIST ON DEMAND. BEST REGARD. JULIAN JONES (MISS) Email: jonesjulian2001@yahoo.com [This email is different than the ones atop] For: CONSOLIDATED PHONES LTD. But two examples of two spam/scam emails. Keep your eyes peeled webmasters! About the author: Visit http://www.discusswireless.com/for useful consumer reviews regarding the latest email and online cellular scams and spam. Post your thoughts in our comprehensive cellular forum. Circulated by Article Emporium Can You Really Make Money Selling New Release CD's & DVD's On eBay? Being an active eBayer, I am often being asked about products to sell. A common question is "Where can I purchase products such as new release CD's DVD's and Video Games for Playstation and X box at a 75% to 100% discount. Well folks, this sort of discount on this type of merchand... Create A Powerful Vision Copyright 2005 Alicia Forest In the Client Abundance coaching programs, we work on implementing several strategies that are designed to PULL your business forward, almost effortlessly. One of those strategies is creating a powerful vision for your business. My private client... When is 'Spying on Your Competition' a Complete Waste of Time? Copyright 2005 Ron Hutton Your brain screams "Gimme Fast", "Gimme Easy", "Do it for me automatically"! So when you see the headline that reads... "Imagine Spying On Your Competition To Build A Massive Targeted Keyword List Of 3000 Or More Keywords On Auto-Pilot..... How to increase your profits by 40% or more with no extra work! Copyright 2004 Richard Grady Before I expand on the above heading, I do have a slight confession to make - you will have to do 'some' work for this process to work but I promise it really isn't much and the long-term benefits can be absolutely incredible :-) The pro... How to publish your own highly demand ezine Ezine is an electronic newsletter that is published through internet. As a home based business owner, it is important for you to have your own ezine. You might ask 'Why do I need an ezine?' There are many reasons why you need it. But the main reason is that your o... Automatic Internet Marketing and Business Success On A Budget 3 Things You Must Do If You Want To Avoid The Internet Freebee Syndrome, And You Have No More Than $25 To Start A Business On The Internet. by Anna Mattingly There are plenty of free tools online for marketing. And many will get you sign ups and sales.... How To Increase Your Conversion Rate or What Most People Miss When It Comes To Optimization For Conv Copyright 2004 Konstantin Goudkov Everybody talks about the importance of testing your sales copy or a page layout. After all, proper testing can help you modify your page in a way that will drastically increase your conversion rate. In this article, I would like to... Effective Email Management E-mail is one of the most powerful and widely used communication tools around today. Every day we log onto our computers at work and most of us will go straight to Outlook to check what new mail we have received. It provides a quick, easy way of communicating not only with other pe... Keywords, How to find them Effectively To be a successful affiliate marketer takes a ton of work. You probably know this by now. Really! I hear some of you say. You thought it was a piece of cake, mostly because you don't have to worry about having your own product. Ok, so no product costs, no shipping... The MOST TRAGIC Mistake a New Marketer Almost ALWAYS Makes Copyright 2005 Richard Meredith So... you're a new marketer, and you want to make extra money or even perhaps a great living! One of the first things you do is join an affiliate program or downline club of some sort. Or maybe even you are trying your hand at Ebay or anothe... Common Work At Home Success Characteristics Do people that are successful in home based businesses share some common characteristics and, if so, what are the primary ones? The dictionary defines successful as: *having a favorable outcome, or *having obtained something desired or intended, ... Online Cell Phone Scams and Spam They're out there. Individuals trying to make a quick buck at your expense. You labour hours on end to produce quality content on your website only to get repetitive requests for huge numbers of product or promises for the greatest deals online. As a webmaster for a cell phone and ... UNDERSTANDING MLM MATRIX PLANS Copyright 2005 Judy Thompson If you are already involved in, or are contemplating a business using network marketing or multi-level marketing (MLM) as your marketing strategy, the better you understand it, the wiser and more successful you will be. Network marketing c... Home Based Businesses Have Their Share Of Frustrations The source of frustration addressed in his article may be all too familiar if you happen to work at an Internet-based home business which relies on personal relationships and/or teamwork. I am often contacted by members of my business team with a tale of woe ... Forums... What They Are And WHY They're Essential For Anyone 'Considering' An Online Business. Copyright 2005 The IWE, LLC Well... first off, let's define exactly what a Forum is so that you'll be able to relate to what I'm about to explain within this article. The simple definition of a Forum is... it's a online community with a open discussion that allows y...
|
|
|||||
|
||||||