Spoofs About Shopping

Scammers and spammers were out in full force spreading their perverse form of cheer this holiday season. I apologize on behalf of these misguided souls.

I recently found this in my in-box along with messages from people who also received it and who thought it was from me:

 "hello!
    To recommend to you a slightly Shopping Network Station: xxx.www.unsico.com
This is a very large company, it is fit by several well-known brands to establish a network marketing company. The company sells motorcycles, computers, televisions, mobile phones, its quality can be guaranteed. Now they are for the expansion of company size, increase sales efforts, promotional activities are being held. If you need to go to the web site.
    Look forward to your visit!
Thanks"

   
If you got this in your e-mail, rest assured it was not from me.

A few obvious clues identify this as a spammer's spoof:
~  The salutation starts with a lowercase letter and ends with an exclamation point.
~ There are over 89 e-mail addresses and they are listed in plain sight in the cc line.
~ The message is written in poor English.
~ The message has nothing to do with what I do or what Artist Career Training offers.
~ There is no signature line.

We send out ArtMatters! And the A.C.T. Tip-of- the week only to those who subscribe. I reply to personal e-mails. We use Constant Contact or our Shopping Cart service to send bulk e-mails to avoid revealing your e-mail address to others.

Anyone with a large mailing list knows that this is part of the cyberspace landscape - like it or not. Anyone can change the name in the "from" field to make it appear as if someone else sent it.

If you want to know more about this type of e-mail hijacking, please see the blog post "Don't Take the Bait" 

http://www.artistcareertraining.com/act-art-marketing-blog/2009/11/16/dont-take-the-bait.html

If it looks suspicious, it probably is. Be careful out there.