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I have just received on in the past 5 minutes which a subject line:
MaheshS0FT has MlCR0S0FT & AD0BE on_saIe Feb 17 13:20:00 MSK 2007 10:33
Without looking at the message, I can tell it is for the sale of dodgy software. I dont remember any of the spam messages, although I seem to get a lot from Fifth World Bank asking me for my details, even though I dont have an account with them.
be careful if you get some from barclays or alliance and leicester banks. They are aware of the spam being sent in their names, so do not reply to them unless you are 100% sure they are real. if in any doubt print out the email and take it into your local branch. i insisted on a written statement saying which were real and which werent, so I can claim any losses.
Usually, you can tell from the address, if it is something like surveyxxm101csr_user_account@barclays.co.uk, it is suspicious. just be careful and spam shouldnt get a chance to cause you trouble
Yeah I got one the other day from Nationwide, telling me that they were upgrading some of their services and asked if I could log in to my online account to verify details etc etc. (I knew it was spam cos the stupid gits didnt do their research. If they had, theyd have found out I wasnt with Nationwide :)) It looked seriously genuine though in terms of layout and suchlike, so I can see how so many people get caught out with these scams
If I get anything from Barclays it goes straight into the bin, and when I signed up for my Alliance & Leicester bank account, I used a new email address and the only company who knows it is A&L.
The emails are getting more and more genuine-looking, but its a case of if you get an email from your bank, dont click on the link in the email and in a new tab, enter the url of the bank and log in that way.
The latter examples are called phishing because they are fishing for your login credentials of your bank account. These have been around for quite some time now and most banksites warn you for these messages. They have become more and more convincing, but 9 times out of 10 they are from the wrong bank anyway.
As a rule, no bank will mail you for this kind of important information but they will send out a letter. It is the same for so called bank software updates or Microsoft updates through email, it is just not done that way. Unless you call your support desk from the bank and you ask them to mail it of course.
Paypal has had a lot to do with these phishing attempts, and should you get a suspicious email from paypal about disabled account and click here to reactivate, forward these mails to abuse@paypal.com. They will let you know the outcome and will take steps to eliminate the phishing websites.