[MOPO] About spoof protection

[JRS MoviePosterBid.com]

The rule about "never clicking on a link in a email" is a good one -- but there are a couple of exceptions:   1) You have asked for the email to be sent to you or done something to trigger it. Like, if you register for membership at www.MoviePosterBid.com, when you submit the form you get a message on the screen saying that you will be sent a mail to confirm your email address. When you get that email, there will be a link in it telling you to click on it to confirm you received it and instructions for changing the automatically generated password to something easy for you to remember. This is a common procedure used by most websites when people first sign up for an account. Since you know the email is coming, you can safely assume it is from the correct website and click on the link.   This only applies to the first time you "do something" at a website that causes them to send you something. If you were to get another email several days later, claiming to be from MoviePosterBid.com and asking you to click on a link to confirm your account, that would be a spoof.   These days, a genuine request for you to access your account from the real website will not have a link in the email, but will say something like:   "Go to MoviePosterBid.com and log-in. Then click on the "My Account" link to change the information in your user profile."   ... that gives you the instructions so you can safely go yourself to what you know for sure is MoviePosterBid.com and not some scam site, and then enter your account information at the authorized site.   2) When you get a confirmation email on something you have done -- like bid on an auction. You will receive an email saying you have won such-and-such item and there may be links in that message to click. Those are safe --at least I have never yet heard of anyone spoofing an auction confirmation, but I suppose it could happen, so if anyone hears of this happening be sure to let the rest of us know.   3) When someone sends an email which includes links to their own auctions, those are safe to click on because you will not be asked to enter any personal information or account number or password.   The links you have to completely avoid are the ones which ask you to "go here and confirm your information" or "click on this link to insure your account is not closed" or anything where they are going to ask you to enter account information or your password or any personal information.   Of course, we don't take credit card information as part of the registration process at MoPoBid, and we only ask for the most basic personal information, so the worst that could happen with us is that if someone got hold of your password that they could buy posters in your name... probably not something most "spoofers" or "phishers" are interested in doing.   -- JR   Beware: as the days go by, these emails look more,  more and MORE official. The spoofers (also known as phishers) are incredibly sophisticated.   My son, who is an IT, gave me this rule of thumb: NEVER CLICK ON A LINK GIVEN IN AN EMAIL, be it from ebay or your bank or paypal or microsoft or anyone else. You should go directly to the site (https...etc) yourself and conduct business from there.   For example, I never click on the link in an ebay auction to pay by paypal .  For extra safety, I just go to www.paypal.com and enter the payment instructions by hand.     Good luck.   Delete that spam after you forward it to ebay.   Diana Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.