Do Not Yet Press The ‘Delete’ Key…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) March 3, 2009 -- No one needs any introductions these days to the world of SPAM by e-mails as many organisations all over the world have been warning us for long about the ‘global epidemic’ as Wikipedia calls it.

Consumer awareness is a key strategy in all these campaigns and some experts suggest that when you spot SPAM in our inbox you simply delete them. Our instant reaction too would be to immediately hit the ‘delete’ key.

But is it safe always? Or is it the ‘best’ thing to do always?

“Many advisories, blogs or expert commentaries, even those from some law enforcement agencies ask people to hit the delete key on any SPAM that they receive. But I would caution against this”, says the author of a recently published book ‘SPAM 2 SCAM How 2 B e-SAFE’ (ISBN 1440424616; EAN/ISBN-13: 978-1440424618; List Price US$14.95 at Amazon; Published in the USA in association with CreateSpace, an amazon.com group company).

This is because, if the ‘return receipt’ feature of your e-mail program is on and the scammer has requested an ‘alert’ on delete, you would be inadvertently validating your e-mail address when you hit the delete key. A better approach, when you are not sure whether or not this feature is on, would be to drag & drop all such ‘suspicious’ mail into a designated folder and allow them to be there for a long time, say 6 months or more before deleting them all at one go, according to the book. Most mail-client-programs - including webmail implementations - usually provide such a folder variously named either junk mail or spam mail, for this purpose. One should of course be careful not to click on any of the links within the mail while moving the SPAM or e-mail SCAM.

According to the author, ‘SPAM 2 SCAM How 2 B e-SAFE’ has been specifically written to create adequate awareness about SPAM, e- SCAMs and more importantly, ‘how to be safe from them’. With over 30 illustrated examples of e-SCAMs in circulation today, this book thus prepares readers to recognise patterns of fraud in many forms and thereby helps them not to fall victim to such schemes. Readers will also find simple yet practical suggestions on how to fortify their information environment and in turn be safe. The book discusses many such topics little known perhaps, nevertheless crucial.

‘SPAM 2 SCAM How 2 B e-SAFE’ is available from

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/SPAM-SCAM-How-B-e-SAFE/dp/1440424616 or
Target: http://www.target.com/SPAM-SCAM-How-B-e-SAFE/dp/1440424616 or
Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/3355182

When people are observing National Consumer Protection Week during March 1 – 7, 2009 in the USA and Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce has organised ‘National Consumer Fraud Week’ from March 02 – 08, 2009 in Australia, this post should prove useful, I guess. Let us try to save as many vulnerable ‘netizens’ as we can, as quickly as we can and in as many ways as we can.

For more information please contact the author.

K P Manikantan
+61 4 22571487

consumer awareness     how to be safe     patterns of fraud     spam