There are many different types of email spoofing, and everyone will most likely be the victim of an email spoof, sooner or later. Most of us know by now if someone has scammed us out of our hard earned money. We answer a well meaning ad and find out that the ad is really just from a made up company that does not exist, all well meaning to separate us from our cash.

There are several well known spoofs that have been around now for years. One is where an email comes to you asking for you to open a bank account in your country to receive funds. In this particular spoof, the person emailing has a dubious return address, or name, and advises that if you open a bank account for him in your country, you will then be sent several thousands of dollars and you can keep a few for yourself. All you have to then do is to forward a money order to the sender, and the money that you keep is your bonus for a job well done. Of course, the money sent is bogus, but your real money order gets taken in return for the deal. This scam has taken many people for a ride, and has been reported to the authorities in many countries.

Another spoof is where an email will come to your inbox exclaiming that you have already won something, such as a prize or an amount of money or even a discount. Then, when you go to collect, you will find that you have to “verify” who you are by giving out personal information such as social security number or passwords to verified accounts. On the subject of verified accounts, many spoofs ask for these passwords and seem to come from reputable sources. The companies such as financial institutions, banks and others will never ask for passwords as verification. A reader should always be suspicious of anyone asking to verify an account with a password, it is always a spoof.

Some spoofs seem to come from the legitimate companies that they purport to be. Readers should check the return addresses of companies to determine if the emails are from the real companies or from impostors. For example, if an email claims to be from a company that you do business with, and the email address has numbers after the name, before the dot com signature, you can bet it is probably from a spoofer. If the email address reads customerservice@discountgiant49770.com it is most likely from a less than reputable organization than the real customerservice@discountgiant.com would have been.

By the way the company Discount Giant does not exist, (it is made up in our imagination) but the email address above looks reputable enough. That is because the address is prefaced with “customer service” and not a random name such as buckymcskullbones@discountgiant.com. This is not to say that Bucky McSkullbones could not exist, or that if he did, he is a less than reputable character. If the email is meant to be from a reputable company, Discount Giant, and the return address includes a fictitious sounding name, it is a good bet that it is a spoof email, and the reader should beware and be forewarned before opening this correspondence.

Jamie Colbs is a html email newsletter templates best practices activist advocate for Benchmark Email , a leading Web and permission-based email marketing service. Author Links Business URL: http://www.benchmarkemail.com/email-marketing/html-email-templates Business/Social Networking Links Twitter URL: http://twitter.com/benchmarkemail
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