Month: July 2023

Many people are concerned about the amount of junk mail they receive in their email box. Like your post office mailbox, you cannot control who sends you an email; you can only throw it away after you receive it.

Some emails will offer you an “unsubscribe” function. If the junk email you are receiving is from a “legitimate” business, feel free to unsubscribe. The WalMarts and LL Beans and Dunkin’ Dounuts of the business world will honor your request and remove you from their marketing list.

Other emailers—those who send nasty and persistent emails—do not function in the same way. DO NOT “unsubscribe” from those emails. Clicking the unsubscribe link in the “Camp Lejeune bad water” emails (or those like it) will not get you off the spammer’s list, and will probably increase the amount of junk you receive. Why? When you “unsubscribe” from those illegitimate business emails, you tell the spammer 1) The email address they used to reach you is still valid, and 2) Someone at that address is actively reading the email. Once they know they have a good address with a live person on the other end, they will sell that address to other spam emailers, and the bulk junk mail you receive will increase!To sum up: There is very little you can do to reduce junk email. A legitimate business will honor their unsubscribe link. Don’t bother “unsubscribing” from the really gross stuff—you’ll probably make matters worse.

A very “popular” scam on the Internet is known colloquially as the “1-800” scam. It works something like this…

You’re browsing the Internet, and everything is going fine, when all of a sudden a quacking siren and a voice tell you “Your computer has been hacked! Don’t turn it off or you will lose all of your important data!” Or, you may see something that looks like a Microsoft “blue screen” error, with the text telling you to call a 1-800 number to let a “Microsoft technician” fix the issue. Don’t fall for it–it’s a scam!

Should you call those 800 numbers, you’ll be connected–not to Microsoft–but to a con man! They will sound convincing. They will be urgent that you MUST let them log into your computer remotely, and then they’ll “fix it” for you. They will show you all kinds of “errors” or “IP addresses from all over the world of people who are spying on you.” These tactics are very misleading. They will try to get you to give them a credit card number, and offer you a yearly maintenance plan–usually costing several hundred dollars.

Should you get one of these blue screens or other screens requesting you call an 800 number, don’t do it! At that point, you haven’t opened yourself up to trouble. Restart your web browser, or restart your computer. ONLY AFTER you’ve called the number and let the scammer take remote control of your computer are you in danger. Once they’ve logged in, they have access to everything on your computer. At that point, you are best served contacting your computer pro and asking them to do a clean up. If you go deeper, and give the scammer your credit card or bank account info, then you need to take bigger steps, and cancel the card and/or alert the bank. It’s better to not get in too deep to begin with. Don’t fall for the scam. Don’t call. Just reboot and start again.

Last August 8th I started a new position as a town clerk for St. George. As part of those duties I contribute to the town’s newsletter. I offer the “Town Tech Tip” every month. The way our town website works, however, means the articles are only posted for a month. Once the new newsletter is posted the old ones go into the archives where no one can get at it. I’m going to archive them here in case they may be useful to someone.