MH Technical Services

Do you get an excessive amount of spam?  “Excessive” is a relative term, but most spam should be caught by your email provider’s spam filter, or if you are using an email program, such as Outlook, the built-in filter should catch most.

1.  Get a separte email address for any subscriptions, newsletters or other websites that require a login.  Some websites seem to require a login for no good reason.  Much of the spam we receive is either from from your email address being sold off or shared with other “affiliated” companies to the one that you are doing business with or by being captured online.  Other times, it is simply from an entity that sends to random, probable accounts with the larger providers.

You can use your primary address with trusted entities that you know are trustworthy - insurance providers, banks, government agencies, or anyone else that you know.

If your specific personal information is not required - or verifiably secured if it is - I would recommend not submitting.  You can always submit generic information, and still allow for any demograhic information that may help the company, to be submitted.  Example:  if they ask for your birthday, submit a different date than your actual birth.  The 1st instead of the 15th, etc. 

Providing your name, birthday date and a few other details can be enough for theives to gain access to additional information on you.

2.  DO NOT RESPOND to unwanted spam!  Some of these crafty spammers will include an “unsubscribe” link so that you can get off their list.  Often times, your response is used as a verification that this is an active email address and could actually cause the problem to worsen.

3.  Read the companies privacy policy if you are unsure.  It’s may seem like a daunting task but you can usually skim through and find the section on what they do with your private information. 

4.  Do not click on links in any email that you are unsure of.  Another thing to watch for is emails from entities that you trust that do not use the official domain name of that entity.  For example, if you bank with ABC Bank and you get and email from ABCBank(@)someothercompany.com, it may be spam.  The safest way to approach these emails is to go to the company’s site and sign in from there.  You can also call them to verify that the email is legitimate.

5.  NEVER submit personal information via email.  If a company is requesting your information via email, again, the best approach is to go to their site or call them to submit the information or verify legitimacy.

If you have a need to submit credit card information, do it over the phone, fax or through a secured website - DO NOT send it via email unless you are using email security (you are probably not if you are using a web-based email or the default settings in most email programs).