Fortunately, there are ways to tell the real cards from the bad ones. Hallmark's own list of how to tell if an e-card has really been sent to you by a friend is a good start.
Hallmark's list includes:. Hallmark e-card e-mails do not include any attachments. To be safe, if you receive an e-card notification with an attachment delete it immediately then empty your "trash" or "deleted e-mails" from your email client.
A legitimate Hallmark e-mail notification will come from the sender's e-mail address, not Hallmark. The sender's first name and last name will appear in the subject line. If you do not recognize the name of the person sending the E-Card, do not click on any links in the e-mail.
Delete the e-mail. The notification will include a link to the E-Card on Hallmark. In addition, Hallmark. To these, I'll add those old basics of never opening e-mail from a stranger and never, ever open attachments or click links from people or groups you don't know. Remember, you should never have to enter your username, password or any other personal information to retrieve a card.
So if one does, delete it immediately. You may want to take the additional step of emptying your trash or recycle bin to really remove it from your computer or phone. The real danger with fake e-cards is that they contain keyloggers. A keylogger is a malicious program tracks every keystroke you make on the computer — including usernames and passwords for bank, brokerage or mutual fund accounts.
Under the law, you are protected if money is stolen from your bank account, but not from your brokerage or mutual fund account. Select brokers have issued their own policies that allow for customer protection. But the bottom line is that you must run anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer.
This is especially important since the holiday season is perfect for ecard scams -- Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year -- which is why we decided to devote this issue to this topic.
For example, your computer then may start displaying obscene images, barrage you with pop-up ads, launch adult websites, or start sending bogus ecards to those in your address book that appear to come from you. For more on viruses , trojans and spyware, click here. One common ecard scam involves ecards that download adware or spyware -- and they get you to agree to this in the fine print when you click saying you accept the Terms of the ecard company! Since not all viruses trash your PC, it may lie dormant for awhile -- so you may never suspect that the ecard you received was anything other than legitimate Here's an example of an ecard scam that's trickier than most phishing scams: The ecard looks like it comes from Hallmark and asks you to download an attachment to pick up our ecard.
However, the attachment isn't really an ecard -- it's a Trojan. This particular Trojan then waits for you to sign onto AOL. This ecard, of course, is not really from Hallmark, and AOL has nothing to do with this scam either. Important: Hallmark never sends attachments with its legitimate ecards. And AOL doesn't ask for billing info via pop-up windows.
0コメント