Email Fraud

Learn to spot spoof emails

Several things can help you determine if an e-mail is legitimate or if it is fraudulent (a spoof). Following are some guidelines to help you to recognize and protect yourself from email fraud.

What is a spoof?

E-mail spoofing is the forgery of an e-mail header so that the message appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Distributors of spam often use spoofing in an attempt to get recipients to open and respond to their solicitations.

Even if you don’t supply any information, clicking links in spoofs may enable thieves to access your computer, record your keystrokes, and capture your passwords.

Also, beware of spoof web forms that ask you to provide confidential information that a legitimate company would not ask the customer to enter for a particular transaction.

How to spot a spoof

  • Sense of urgency — Emails claim your order will be canceled or the deal will expire if you don’t respond
  • Spelling errors — There may be obvious spelling errors, which help spoof e-mails avoid spam filters
  • From and reply to email addresses are not the same – Email may say from “BigCompany.com” but the reply is to “SomeOtherCompany.com”
  • Incongruous offer – The product or service offered is not related to the company’s core competency

How to protect yourself

  • Go directly to the website– The best way to get to any website is to type its address (URL) into your browser and bookmark it
  • Set up a login cookie– Some let you set your computer remember a User ID. When you return to the site from an e-mail to sign on, your User ID will be visible in the sign on box. A spoof website will not be able to display your User ID
  • Never use the “Remember Me” feature on a public or shared computer

Report a spoof

If you suspect that you’ve received a fraudulent e-mail message from AMADA WELD TECH, please forward it to us at info@amadamiyachi.com. Don’t change or retype the subject line, as this makes it more difficult to properly investigate. After forwarding the e-mail, you should delete it from your inbox.