CONCLUSION and EVALUATION POINTS for determining whether the email shown below and at the top of the previous post was spam. To read the overall on being safe when opening email and clicking on links within it, check out the following link, Be Safe Guidelines for Opening e-Mail.
The link shown above for the first email, said to be from Facebook only, IS legitimate. I’ve signed up to be notified by email when a “New Message from…” is posted to me in Facebook.
The second email, said to be from “Facebook Weekly News” is SPAM, at least from my point of view. “New Message:”, with a colon in the subject line is meaningless and thus an identifier.
My Recommendation – Delete the second one labeled, “Facebook Weekly News”. Do NOT click on any of the links.
If you hadn’t deleted it before opening, you will see the actual actual content of the email (shown below).
1 – Again what’s in the Subject line is meaningless.
2- The addresses showing up in the “Reply-to” are suspect. A search on URLs, testing the .com part of the second email address shows no relevant site.
3. There is no explanation of the “Free Report” being offered in a link. Simply that it’s getting good feedback.
4. The copy says I’ve signed up to receive IM (Internet Marketing) products and if I’m not interested in the “gifts” click on the link to unsubscribe. I don’t recall signing up AND I am NOT going to verify my email address in this way to an unidentified source. So it’s now Deleted from my computer.
The ultimate clue, identifying it to me as Spam is “What does any of the copy have to do with Facebook?” If you recall, at the beginning I pointed out that this supposedly came from Facebook.
Finally, if you do NOT enjoy the investigative process as I do, be safe and simply DELETE when you have a twinge of concern.
Please add your comments or questions in the “Leave a reply” box below. Feedback is always appreciated.
You may also send questions to easyseniortechnology@gmail.com
Thanks for the Facebook spam heads-up! I am really trying to work on the discipline, as you discuss, to just run the list and delete everything that doesn’t look right–but some of these guys are really good, and sometimes it is soooooo tempting!!
Thanks for the post and the smile, Kathryn. Yep, some are really good. I have a good friend who has been teaching computers for years and she got caught in something without realizing it. I got a very legitimate looking email to go to a site to check out her photos.
The thing is I know she’s not much into photography, so I was suspect with that. Then I found I got the email to 3 different addresses. That was the kicker!
One thing you might find helpful, or reassuring, is to set up a gmail account and start using that for all your email. They have good spam filters and I’m thinking if you click on links there it would stay on the web and not get into your computer. I’ll have to check that theory out.
Will get back on this.