Have you ever peered into the junk box of your email? or simply just been bombarded with crap?
I am suffering from both. Okay so I am not really suffering, in fact I find the whole thing really amusing and a touch scarey.
What am I talking about? Well it’s spam. Not the stuff you find in a can or the Monty Python stuff but that slightly sinister email spam. Unwanted crap that people send out it the tens of thousands daily.
Now spam I can handle. The majority of it gets picked up and dumped into the email junk folder without you ever knowing. Most of it ranging from cheap watches to drugs - of which have so many fascinating names. Yyou’d never buy them of course because you would probably never know if they were real or not. As for those pesky little time keepers? Well I have found that through my life so far that you only really need one. The best ones that self wind and charge are amazing as it never ever stops. Long has gone the day when the watch stops because of a flat battery, whereupon you take it off for six weeks purely because you have not got the time or inclination to buy a new one.
Anyhow I digress slightly. The email that does worry me is of the phishing variety. Now this does not involve the aformentioned advertising emails selling fish or fishing products. It is in fact something slightly more sinister. Phishing is generally where people are unwittingly misdirected to a website purporting to be a bank or similar financial institute. There are the odd Nigerians trying to ship $10M out of the country also.
Now I have several rules in life. One of which involves people collecting for charity in pubs or bars.
I have nothing against charity persay, but the one thing I detest is people collecting money in pubs or bars. The majority of which are just scamming people. A chap has started coming to our bar every friday after work. In he comes collecting from one person to another. Now on several occasions before we have not given anything, offering the polite response that we do not give to charity whilst drinking. Last night he asked again and obviously got a very terse reply to go away. Yet he still did not understand what the issue was!
My second rule is never, ever, ever, reply to an email you recieve from a bank or financial institution no matter what the reason.
My belief is that banks should all know better. If it is important they will write to you. This is where phishing comes into play. Over the last couple of days I have been literally bombarded with emails from every bank under the sun. Funnily enough most of these perport to come from the UK, Halifax, RBS, Barclays to name a few.
Now recieving one every so often probably works on some poor mug. But to recieve TEN in the space of a couple of hours is just ridiculous. I am starting to get so many that even the junk mail filter does not filter them. Fortunately I am a kind sole and report them a phishing sites. Hopefully with the aim of saving those unwiting few.
I have recieved over 30 of these in the last 24hrs!!! So please if you get an email from a bank – ignore it and delete it!
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