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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:55 am
Is Your Website Blacklisted? A blacklist, as the name implies, is a list of people or companies who have met with the disapproval of others. In the online world a blacklist refers to those people who have been marked as responsible for generating spam in a very big way. Blacklists are also known as blocklists. Blacklists are used to combat spam in a very specific way. When spam is reported to one of the relevant spam fighting organizations the IP address the spam originated from is added to a banned or blacklisted IP addresslist. An IP address is the unique location of you or your website on the Internet - think of it as your “home address” online. To put it simply every www.domain.com Internet address has a matching IP address. Any email coming from your website domain also has a corresponding IP address. If your IP address is present on a blacklist then you’re potentially wasting your time sending email to customers. Why are you wasting your time? Modern spam blockers come with the most common blacklists installed and/or allow you to import updated blacklists into your spam blocker. This allows to you block a huge amount of spam but you may also, potentially, block legitimate email. Blacklists are not foolproof. There are two types of IP address: Dynamic - changes every time you connect to the Internet. Most commonly used for dialup Internet access. Spammers love these because they’re very hard to track and 100% disposable. Fixed/Static - All websites, most large companies and some individuals use fixed IP addresses. This can cause huge problems if they’re reported for pamming. When an IP address (dynamic or fixed ) is reported for sending spam it’s added to a blacklist. There are three different types of blacklists: Temporary An IP address placed on a temporary blacklist will have email coming from that IP address blocked for several hours. After a few hours the offending IP address is removed from the blacklist. Permanent When an IP address is added to a permanent blacklist any email server configured to block email from this list will never receive email from that range of IP addresses again. Comprehensive This is the most damaging of blacklists. Not only does it block a single IP address it also blocks the IP addresses next to it. For example if the IP address 192.156.66.67 was added to a comprehensive blacklist then all IP addresses close to 192.156.66.67 will also be blocked. This can be a huge problem for those website owners using virtual hosting because if your host has ever appeared on a blacklist then you’re also on the same blacklist, by default, because of the shared hosting from the same IP range. It’s important for all website owners to check whether or not they’re on a blacklist. You’ll need your IP address (available from your webhost) and you can check your blacklist status at: www.mail-abuse.org/cgi-bin/lookup Blacklists are a necessary evil due to the volume of spam being sent each day but are not an exact science. Take a few moments from your day and ensure that your website or email address is not being blocked. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:54 am
Methods to Fight Spam!!! by Wendy Fighting Spam.. Industry experts estimate that three out of every five e-mail messages that are sent today are spam. This is not only a nuisance; it is costing us all time and money which could be better spent on productive ventures. Bizwala is committed to fighting spam & blocks a great deal without customer intervention. Our systems are updated daily and we are always working to improve our spam filtering. Though we may never be able to block it all, we can offer some suggestions to combat spam effectively. Q: How can I prevent spam from reaching my e-mail account? A: People who send spam compile their mailing lists in many ways. Methods to compile such lists include: Sending spam to e-mail addresses that are most commonly used. A common tactic consists of building lists of targeted addresses that use frequently used words such as “webmaster” or “info” (for example, “webmaster@mydomainname” or “info@mydomainname”). Obtaining e-mail addresses that are automatically “harvested” from web sites by specialized software. Compiling lists of e-mail addresses that are either chosen or generate at random (for example, ” joe1@mydomainname”, “joe2@mydomainname” or “joe3@mydomainname”. This method is becoming increasingly frequent. Because spammers often send spam to undefined e-mail aliases such as aabbcc@domain.com, ccddee@domain.com, mfrds@domain.com, you can combat the receipt of spam effectively by not using a catch-all address . (The catch-all is an alias that is used to recieve mail sent to undefined addresses/aliases .) Q: What is spoofing and how can I fight it? A: “Spoofing” occurs when a spammer uses some version of your domain name in the “From” address field. Spammers use spoofing to try to hide their identities and to pass blame for spam to innocent Internet users. The large amount of spam messages — many of which are sent to invalid address — result in a significant amount of “bounced” e-mail (that is, mail that returned as being undeliverable). Unfortunately, bounced mail is sent back to the address found in the “From” line of the spammed message. Typically, the “From” line is also an undefined e-mail address not found in your mail settings. To combat receiving bounced mail messages, you can use the “devnull” alias that we mentioned in the previous question and answer. Q: Even if my account is not generating any spam, can the mail server I use get blocked because of spam? Unfortunately, yes. The main cause for blacklisting your mail server depends on where the spammed e-mail is ultimately received and how the ISP who maintains that location reacts to spam and to spam complaints. Many account holders with Bizwala forward e-mail messages that are sent to there hosting account. For example, a message sent to info@mydomainname could be forwarded to myaccount@aol.com or myaccount@yahoo.com. At other times, clients may be forwarding e-mail messages to accounts that are invalid or otherwise not in use. The processing of the forwarded e-mail message is handled by the mail server that your account uses (specifically, the MTA or Mail Transport Agent). Because a Bizwala mail server is the MTA, it is possible that the mail server could be blacklisted even though you (or any other Bizwala client) is not responsible for sending the spam in the first place. In short, you must be careful about where you forward e-mail, how you report spam, and to whom you report it. Note: Bizwala reserves the right to terminate a client’s services for violations of our Acceptable Use policy. Unacceptable use includes forwarding e-mail messages to addresses that are invalid (not within the client’s control) and/or sending mail with malicious intent. Q: How can I filter spam in my Inbox once I receive it? First, do NOT click any links in the spam or try to reply or unsubscribe to the spammed e-mail message. Often, these links will subscribe you to even more spam lists despite the fact that those links appear to promise that you will be unsubscribed. And, as spammers are always looking for legitimate e-mail addresses to spam, replying to a spam message in any way only tells the spammer that your e-mail address is valid. Second, some e-mail programs have built-in functionality that deals with spam that reaches your Inbox. Outlook 2000 (and newer) is one such a e-mail program. Outlook creates a folder called Junk Mail, where you can move junk e-mail and then review it before deleting. Or, you can have junk e-mail delivered to your Inbox, but color-coded so you can easily identify it. The list of terms that Outlook uses to filter suspected junk e-mail messages is found in a file named Filters.txt. You can also filter messages based on the e-mail addresses of junk and adult content senders, allowing you to move or delete all future messages from a particular sender. You can review the Junk Senders list and add and remove e-mail addresses from it. If you do not use Outlook 2000 or higher, please refer to your mail program’s help files for any information related to spam filtering. Q: Are there any low cost programs out there that I can install to help filter the spam? A: Yes. There are many programs available that use a variety of methods to help e-mail end users filter spam. Effective spam prevention should include client-side software (that is, software that is installed on your local computer). Below are some links that you may want to visit: Cloudmark Safety Bar: http://www.cloudmark.com Realize that there are many products on the market that you can install on help filter spam. However, as we are not affiliated with the vendors or authors of those products, we cannot specify which of those products would work best for your specific situation. We ask that you “do your research” in order to locate which product is best for you. Q: The spam that is reaching me is being sent to defined e-mail accounts. What can I do about it? A: If any of your defined e-mail addresses are receiving too many spam messages, it may be well worth it to you to change your e-mail address. For example, if “info@mydomainname” is the recipient of too much spam, it may be a good idea to delete “info@mydomainname” in favor of “information@mydomainname. We realize that this may be a tough decision, but such an action could be a huge benefit as it would immediately reduce — if not entirely eliminate — the amount of spam that you would be receiving at your e-mail address. Q: How can I prevent my e-mail address from being added to spammer’s mailing lists? A: As mentioned above, spammers use a variety of methods to compile lists. We have created a help document that will give you some useful tips about how to prevent your e-mail addresses from being added to lists. Protect Your Privacy If you plan to enter your information to any Web site, please review the Terms of Service and Privacy Policies of the Web site. If the policies do not clearly indicate what will be done with your information, you should reconsider posting any details to that Web site. Publishing Your E-mail Address on Your Web Site Instead of having a simple “mailto” link on your Web site, such as “Please e-mail me at joe@example.com,” consider using an approved form mail script that allows Web site visitors to fill out a form to send you e-mail. Bizwala offers such a script free of charge. This will help prevent e-mail address harvesting robots and other spammers from capturing your address. email support@bizwala.net if you need assistance in setting up a spam deterrent form mail Member Profiles Try to stay away from creating and posting a member profile, on any Web site, for others to see publicly. Spammers are always reviewing such information for new e-mail addresses. Product Registration Many of us register products online. Many times the product registration form has options pre-selected that enable the company to solicit you by e-mail, even though you may not want it. Be sure to review the options you are selecting and any options that may have been selected for you by default. Posting to a Newsgroup Never post anything to a newsgroup with your real e-mail address. Consider cloaking the address or using a “disposable” e-mail address. Consider creating and using an e-mail address from one of the free e-mail address providers. Do Not Reply to Spam or an Unsubscribe Request Never reply to a piece of spam or request to be unsubscribed. Your reply confirms that your address is working and provides the spammer the opportunity to add your address to their list or sell it to another entity. This actually helps facilitate more spam. Report Spam An effective way to help prevent spam is to report it to the ISP or mail administrator where the spam originated. Such reports help ISPs to identify the user or users who sent the spam. Report the spam, including full headers from the spam, to the ISP abuse department or postmaster e-mail address. Federal law strictly limits the information that online service providers may disclose about their users. However, e-mail messages do contain some information about the sender. E-mail headers contain an Internet Protocol (IP) address that corresponds to the sender’s Internet service provider (ISP). A line in the e-mail message contains an 8 to 12 digit number, separated by periods. For example: “Received: from [123.456.78.91] by . . .” The “123.456.78.91″ represents the ISP’s unique IP address for the sender. Most spam headers have multiple “Received: from” lines. If the e-mail message has not been forged then, in general, the first such line from the bottom is the true origin of the spammed message. After you identify the IP address, you can search to determine which ISP provides this person with Internet access. A Web site that attempts to determine the actual computer with that IP address is located at http://www.arin.net/whois/index.html -Article written by Wendy Jo McLeod Spam solution providers Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:53 am
The Reliability of Spam Filters by David Simon The only way to keep up with the latest about The Reliability Spam Filters is to constantly stay on the lookout for new information. If you read everything you find about The Reliability Spam Filters, it won’t take long for you to become an influential authority. Spam filters supposedly stop spam ,ails, phishing mails, which are another type of spam that comes through the mailbox, but pose more of a risk than other types of spam email. Thus, if a phishing email comes to your in inbox and you provide the sender with your information, you have put yourself at a high risk of having your identity stolen. This means that you must avoid these emails at all costs. Internet service providers today claim to place high-security on their services. However, AOL, Comcast, Verizon and other services probably have less security than you might believe especially with their default settings. If you don’t have accurate details regarding The Reliability Spam Filters, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading. The fact is that spam emails and phishing emails especially put the account holder at risk. The phishing mails are worse because they appear to come from account providers, such as banks, internet service providers and businesses. Thus, avoiding these mails at all cost is part of filtering your mail. While AOL has a spam filter integrated into its server, it still does not have the power to stop the perpetrators completely if you fail to do so yourself, you could end up at high-risk of having your identity stolen. If you think you have problems now just sorting through and deleting those emails, just think of how much more trouble you will have if you ever accidently answer one. You will have to contact credit bureaus, cancel credit cards, and withdraw money from your bank accounts. Thus, the ultimate filter for reducing and getting rid of spam or phishing emails is either to not answer them at all or to remit a blank email to the sender. Spam email filters may seem highly reliable, but do not misunderstand that to mean that you now have the freedom to open anything in your inbox without any scrutiny. Always take the time to sort and separate your mail. Is there really any information about The Reliability Spam Filters that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:53 am
Strategies To Fight Email Spam If you are a business owner and you rely on email, spam is going to be a major concern. How you address it can make a big difference in employee efficiency. Email spam has been a nuisance and has gotten even worse over the last several years. Email spam slows down server performance and can eat away at storage. Cleaning all those bad messages out of your inbox is time consuming. The easiest way for viruses to spread is via email. Having a strategy to deal with email spam and viruses threats is essential for any business to survive and be productive. You can limit the negative impact to your business by having policies and guidelines in place. Tips to avoid getting email spam: If you have a company web site, use a contact form that the web site visitor can fill out. Some spam mers use robots that crawl web pages looking for email addresses. Your web site designer should be able to help you with this. When signing up for forums, products and services use a free email or throwaway account like hotmail or Yahoo mail. When signing up for offers be careful what boxes you check although technically not spam you may get a lot of email offers you do not want. Never reply to an email spam message, this just lets them know that your account is active. You may want to use a throwaway email address if you post on newsgroups or forums. These measures may help to reduce spam, but if you have an old email address you may want to change your email address or deploy a spam filter system. There are several choices for anti spam systems you could buy software that runs locally on your PC to filter the spam, but this can be expensive, does not prevent virus infection, and is not a good choice in a networked environment. Managing individual machine spam software is inefficient. If you have limited technical resources you can outsource you email spam filtering to a hosted anti spam and virus solution provider. Spam filter service providers colocate their spam and virus filters in data centers with redundant power and network connections. You will need to change your mail exchanger on your dns servers to point to the service providers spam filters. Your service provider will then scrub your email for spam and viruses. They then forward your email to your mail server minus the spam and viruses. This gives you a few extra layers of protection. In the event of a network outage or server downtime your email is held and is delivered when the network or your server is available minus the virus and spam. Spam filter services also scan for viruses; this adds another layer of defense to the virus software already running on your network. If you have an organization with more than one hundred email boxes investing in your own spam filter appliance is the most cost effective solution if you have the technical expertise to manage the system. A spam appliance sits in front of your email server and blocks spam and viruses. The price of the spam appliance will depend upon your number of users, amount of mail and storage requirements. Fighting spam is no longer be a losing battle if you have a good strategy to deal with the threat. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:52 am
How DO Spammers Get Your Email Address? How DO Spammers Get Your Email Address? As much as I try to stem the seemingly endless flow of spam, the crap just keeps arriving my Inbox. For example, this week I received “New affiliate programs from 2004-02-10 to 2004-02-14 :: Subscription from http://WeAreBlahBlahBlah.net”. I’d never heard of WeAreBlahBlahBlah.net, let alone subscribed to the newsletter. But the address used explained exactly how the spammer reached me. I’ve set up numerous ’special’ addresses for customers, affiliates, subscribers, merchant partners and others. For example, if I join XYZ’s affiliate program, I might set up XYZ@nptinfo.com and give that address to them to contact me. If I suddenly start to receive spam at that address, then I know EXACTLY who the ‘leaky’ culprit is. Here are other ways spammers get your address. Web Pages Spammers use scavenger bots, programs that ‘harvest’ email addresses contained in “mailto:” HTML tags. Those are clickable email links that open your email program with the address already placed in the “To” field. Web Forms Some sites request various details via forms, e.g. guest books & registration forms. Spammers get email addresses from these because the form is publicly available on the web, or because the webmaster sells the list. Paper (Offline) Forms Some companies sell lists of addresses obtained from convention participants or contest entrants. Whois Searches Unless the domain registrant has paid an additional fee to make their registration private, a simple Whois lookup reveals the registrant’s address. Although most registrars have enhanced the security of their WHOIS databases, by requiring a special code be entered before information is displayed, many spammers take the time and trouble to grab addresses this way. From Web Browsers Some sites use various tricks to extract a surfer’s email address from the web browser, sometimes without the surfer noticing it. Chat Rooms This is another major source of email addresses for spammers, especially as this is one of the first public activities newbies join, making it easy for spammers to harvest ‘fresh’ addresses. Sending Test Messages Have you ever sent a message to an invalid address? You get an ‘undeliverable’ or ‘failure’ notice back. Some spammers use this to guess email addresses by sending test messages to a list of made-up or guessed addresses. They know they’ve got good addresses for those that did not result in failure messages. Online Yellow Pages What could be more alluring to a spammer than a directory of names and email addresses filed by category? Chain Letters These are ingenious. I tell five friends, and my friends each tell five of their friends, and so on and so forth. The email addresses all build up in the cc field and are a spammers delight. Buying Lists Spammers buy lists of email addresses usually passed off as those belonging to people who opted-in to to obtain information in a specific category. Let’s put spammers out of business. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Use ‘throw-away’ addresses whenever you’re not sure of the source, and don’t sign up unless there are clear ‘Privacy’ statements on the site. If worse comes to worse, and you’re fighting your way through a mountain of spam, install anti-spam software on your computer. © Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved. Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online”. To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to: http://hop.clickbank.net/?nathanoct/webvista2 About the Author Rosalind Gardner is one of the top affiliate marketers in the world. In January 1997, Rosalind Gardner received her first ‘web check’ and hasn’t looked back since. Trading her career as an air traffic controller for full-time netpreneurship in early 2000, her various internet projects now entertain and inform millions of visitors annually. She offers this article with YOU in mind, knowing that if she can earn a good living online, YOU can too. Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:50 am
Are You A Spam Zombie? Over the past few years you’ve all become familiar with the terms spam, spam filter, whitelists, blacklists and a whole myriad of other terminology associated with the problem of spam. You now have to add a new and extremely worrying phrase to that list - spam zombie. With the net closing in around them spammers are looking for new and more inventive ways to send out their junk email. Spam filters and challenge response systems are becoming progressively more intelligent and blocking more spam each day. What was a spammer to do? The spammers took the next step - infiltrating your PC and using it as a spamming tool. When most of you think of the word zombie you’re reminded of old B movies with groaning zombies chasing the terrified actress through a castle, swamp or whatever low cost setting the movie revolved around. Spam zombies are, however, far more real and far more dangerous. A spam zombie is when your computer is taken over by a type of virus called a Trojan. Once this Trojan virus is on your computer it sets up an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) application which allows it to begin sending email directly from your PC to tens of thousands of victims. This all happens invisibly in the background and can be difficult to detect for even the experienced computer user. How do these Trojans get onto your computer? As in most cases they come from porn, warez or similar sites. One of the first spam zombie trojans to appear became available via a link on sites promising viewers free access to a porno webcam. One click later and the Trojan is installed on your computer ready to send out spam. Phatbot and Proxy-Guzu are two of the more common Trojans used for the purpose of turning your computer into a spam zombie. How can you check if your computer has become a spam zombie? Make absolutely certain that both your anti-virus and firewall software have current detection signatures and have been completely patched and updated. Working online without taking these necessary security precautions is simply asking for trouble. Internet Service Providers are under huge pressure to quarantine the IP address of any computer which has been turned into a spam zombie. This is done on the basis that the ISP risks their entire IP range being blacklisted or banned by some spam filtering services or companies. The very least you owe yourself is to run a full virus and spyware scan on your computer today. You might be unpleasantly surprised at what you’ll find lurking there. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.21.06 by Admin @ 1:50 am
How to Not Appear Like A Spammer Unless you use the Internet only for surfing and never use your email address you’ve probably received something that is called spam. There are different definitions for spam but I will say that spam is unsolicited email commercial. Many people harvest other people’s email addresses on email and web forums and send them info that they didn’t request. This is very frustrating because you loose your precious time deleting those unwanted messages. In this article I will explain how NOT to appear like a spammer. Opt-in If you have an email newsletter it is very important that you don’t appear like a spammer. If you want to stay long in email publishing business your newsletters have to be based on opt-in method. It means that a subscriber chose to receive your newsletter and that you have their permission to send them your newsletter. It is called Permission Marketing. I would suggest that your list be double opt-in. Now what is double opt-in? Double opt-in means that your subscribers have to confirm their request to join your list. Confirmation is done by replying to the message that you send to everyone who had initiated subscription. Beside replying, people can confirm their request by clicking on a certain link. This ensures that one person can’t subscribe another person against his or her will. Also, never buy so called opt-in lists and also never sell or rent your members base. Welcome message I would suggest you that you ask your new subscribers to save your welcome message. There you can put the necessary info about your list and list management: list description, subscribe/unsubscribe address, digest address, owner’s email address, list rules… This is important because of the following. Many people promote their newsletter for some time, until they get enough subscribers and then publish the first issue. However, it is most likely that someone who had subscribed to your list several months ago forgot that he or she actually requested to be a member of your list. And then, they can accuse you that you are a spammer. If they save a welcome message they can see that they required to be your subscribers. Subject line Subject line is very important in email newsletters. Beside, From field it is the most important thing for someone to decide whether to open your newsletter or not. I would suggest that your subject line consists a title of your article, issue number and date. If your From or To field doesn’t consist your list name than you should put your list name in Subject line, too. Preferably in brackets. If you have your subscriber’s first name in your database you should definitely put their name as the first thing in the Subject line. Then it is more likely that they will open your newsletter. Never use spam techniques like putting Re: at the beginning of your Subject line so that people think that they sent you an email and you are sending them your reply. Nobody is fool. Filtration Many people use email programs with powerful email filter options. Many people set their filters to delete messages with get-rich-quick-schemes, porn and similar content so it is wise that you don’t put that kind of text in your messages if you want that people read it. Also, don’t capitalize your words like FREE, MAKE MONEY, GUARANTEED… I wouldn’t suggest that you use this or similar words in the first place beacuse these words are often used by spammers. If you have an option that in To field be your subscriber’s email address and not, for example your list name, that would be ideal because some mail washer programs automatically flag messages which don’t have a recipient email address as possible SPAM. List management Always provide very clear information regarding list management in your newsletter. Very important thing is that your list management provides very easy way of unsubscribing. For example, some email newsletters have at the very bottom an unique unsubscribe address for every subscriber. It can be something like leave-yourlistname-111327893L@yourlistserver.com This way, your subscribers can unsubscribe only with one click and they don’t have to worry if they sent unsubscription request from address which is in your subscriber list. Good list management is, also, useful because you won’t loose your time explaining to your subscribers how to do something, for example unsubscribe or set receiving messages in digest mode. Also, it is wise that if you use advanced email marketing software like Group Mail to include important information about your subscribers in every issue of your email newsletter. In other words, to personalize your newsletter. For example, you can make a section at the beginning of your email newsletter where you will write several lines so that your subscriber see that he or she really chose to be your subscriber. Many email marketing software have an option to include a code in your issue that will be automatically parsed after sending so the subscriber will see his or her info. Something like this: _____________________ MEMBERS SECTION Your name: !*COMPLETE_NAME*! Member since: !*MEMBER_SINCE*! From IP address: !*IP_ADDRESS*! _____________________ And in your Editor’s Section you can start your writing with: Dear, !*COMPLETE_NAME*!… That’s why personalization is very important. At the end, you can read several spam messages and - do the opposite in your email newsletter. About the Author Filed under: Email Spam Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.13.06 by Admin @ 2:16 am
Tax Season - Time for Scams by Richard A. Chapo As tax season draws irresistibly closer, the scam artists are polishing their latest techniques. This article should help you keep an eye out for these nasty individuals. Tax Season - Time for Scams In a particularly cheeky move, scam artists have started posing in on form or another as the IRS in an effort to get you to turn over social security numbers and such. Logically, this actually makes sense. Everyone is terrified by the IRS and dread be contacted by the Agency. Most of us would do anything to resolve any issue raised by an IRS Agent including sending them copies of credit card statements and providing crucial financial information over the phone. Put another way, this is the perfect scenario for a scam artists. The goal of scam artists, of course, is to get private information they can use to open credit card accounts and so on. This is loosely known as phishing for the purpose of identity theft. Phishing and identify theft can occur through practically any communication method. Here are some recent scams that were successful: 1. One group of scam artists started sending spam emails notifying taxpayers they were eligible for tax refunds. The scam worked because the emails were sent from IRS types of email accounts including the irs letters in the address. Taxpayers were then told to go to click through to a site where they could fill out a form and get their refund. Of course, the email address and web site were fakes. Nobody got a refund, but the scam artists received a bevy of social security numbers, credit card information and so on. In total, this scam occurred through 12 different web sites in 11 countries. 2. This one is a classic. Scam artists send bogus IRS letters and Form W-8BEN asking non-residents to provide personal information including bank account numbers, PINs, passport numbers and so on. Form W-8BEN is used by banks, not the IRS, to obtain information from non-residents who are opening bank accounts! Unfortunately, many non-residents fell for this scam and had their identities stolen. There are a couple of guidelines you can use when dealing with IRS communications. First, the IRS never, ever sends email to taxpayers. NEVER! If you get an email communication, it is absolutely a scam. Delete it or send it to the IRS so they can take action. If you receive mail communications from the IRS, call the agency to verify a letter was really sent to you. With phone call communications, get the persons name and call them back at the IRS. Both methods will stop scam artists in their tracks. Be skeptical of communications you receive from sources you are not expecting. Finally, the IRS never asks a taxpayer for passwords or PIN numbers. If the agency desires to seize your bank account, they can just do it. They don’t need to take out $300 a day until your tax debt is collected! Scam artists are highly creative people. If you have doubts about an communication of the IRS, pick up the phone and call the agency. Richard A. Chapo is with BusinessTaxRecovery.com - providing information on tax and taxes. Visit us to read more tax articles and our new tax credits page. Filed under: News Comments: None |
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External News Email Spam News News on Email Spam continually updated from thousands of sources around the net. Twitter to Begin Screening Some Links for Phishing Twitter launched a new link-screening service on Tuesday aimed at preventing phishing and other malicious attacks against users of the popular microblogging service. Whata s the break down of spam? I see on Symanteca s Twitter feed that roughly 82% of all spam is pharmaceutical spam. Trend Micro Threat Research Report: 9 Million ZeuS Attacks Blocked ... Trend Micro has seen a recent rise in average of around 300 unique ZeuS samples per day, according to a recent threat report that examines the Eastern European criminal enterprise behind one of the world's most prolific crimeware kits designed for wholesale monetary theft. |
