How to Handle Spoof E-mails

You may have heard of the terms "phishing" or "spoof" e-mails. You also may be wondering what exactly these terms mean. A "spoof" e-mail is a fraudulent e-mail from someone who is pretending to be a company, such as PayPal, eBay or a bank with which you do business. For this article, I am going to use PayPal as the example, since PayPal is a common company used for spoof e-mails. The scam artists will recreate the company's logo and website, to look just the real thing. It's very deceiving, and that's the whole point. This e-mail is sent to you, in attempt that you will click on the link in the e-mail and enter your personal information. These scam artists are hoping that you are a member of PayPal (or other company), and that you will think that this e-mail is from PayPal asking for your info. Once you have fallen for their scam, your personal information is now in the hands of identity thieves. Sound scary? Do you know what to do if you receive one of these "spoof" e-mails?

Identify the Spoof