If you are like most people, you probably get a fair number of "informative" desperate, or even cute e-mail messages forwarded to you. Many, if not most of them, are no doubt scams, efforts to get personal information from you, harvest e-mail addresses, download malicious software to your computer, and the like.

Below are some examples of some of the more common e-mail scams. (You can also visit Snopes.com to see the 25 Hottest Urban Legends, a list of hoaxes circulating most widely today.) At the end of this blog, get some tips for identifying fraudulent e-mail and find out what you can do about scam e-mail messages.

A 'timely' warning?

These almost always want you to do something—for example, keep your cell phone number out of telemarketer hands, forward the e-mail on to help even more people (like warnings of a new virus that is circulating and destroying computers), stop (or start) taking a medication, go to a Web site (that may infect your PC with malicious software), etc.

Chain letter

Online chain letters, like their snail mail counterparts, are often scams that waste your time and clog networks. They may also be used to harvest e-mail account names to be used in sending spam, be financial scams, or urge recipients to click links that may put malicious software on their computers. Some chain letters claim to be for a good cause—for example, the claim that every time an e-mail is forwarded,

E-mails with fake missing person reports cause harm. They steal valuable resources from police departments and legitimate missing person organizations who have to answer calls about bogus claims. In addition, people get "alert fatigue" so that when a real alert comes out, they don't believe it.

Legitimate missing persons reports will be on the news or on legitimate Web sites. They may also be sent to you as an Amber Alert if you have signed up to receive these. (See my blog, AMBER Alerts Campaign – Help Save a Child, to learn more).

A legitimate alert, will never name a person as the source. Amber alerts are centrally managed.

Desperate requests for help

These types of e-mail scams are particularly common after disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami that hit Asia. Since there is always a disaster somewhere in the world, these scams are always in circulation. They may also take the form of an individual disaster, usually about someone with a terminal illness who can't afford a lifesaving treatment. These will probably lead you to a Web site where you can donate to the cause. Not only is the e-mail a con job, people who give money through the Web site have almost certainly also "donated" their credit card information to identity thieves.

Offers of free money

I've got some sad news for you: no stranger is going to give you free money. Yet a remarkable number of people hope it is true anyway. These scams come in a few flavors like:

• Unclaimed money owed to you. These lead you off to a Web site or phone number where you'll just give a little information about yourself and so discover all the money owed to you. This one is particularly compelling because there really are services to help you find unclaimed money (for example, through state governments), but the scammers are going to try to get money from you.

• The rich person or company wants to give you money or prizes. Note: Bill Gates gives vast amounts to charities, but he's not going to give any to you directly. Neither are Microsoft, AOL, Coca-Cola, or other companies.

An intriguing picture or video or a link to an interesting Web site

These in e-mail messages—even birthday cards—may be entirely benign. Or opening images from e-mail or clicking a Web address may download viruses or other malicious software to your computer. So, if you know and trust the sender, you may want to open it. But, if you're unsure of the source, don't click anything in the message.

The warning signs of fraud

The following won’t guarantee to help you spot every fraudulent e-mail message, but they are good rules of thumb. Look for these telltale signs:

• Messages with misspellings, lots of capital letters, words like URGENT or SECRET, or has lots of exclamation marks.
• You find the topic of the message in a search on www.snopes.com.
• Claims in the message don't make sense to you.
• The e-mail has been forwarded by a chain of forwarded senders. Do you know the sender? Was the e-mail forwarded to the sender? Who did the message originally come from?
• You are told to forward the e-mail to everyone you know.

Think the e-mail may be a scam?

BEFORE you click a link that came in a forwarded e-mail message or forward a message to others:

• Give it your own does-this-make-sense test.
• Check to be sure the information is legitimate. Sites like TruthorFiction, Snopes.com, or Urban Legends can help you learn if the e-mail is a scam.
• When in doubt, don't click links in e-mail or instant messages. If you're unsure whether a message is genuine, call the company using the number from a past statement or the phone book. To visit the Web site, type the address or use your own bookmark. If the Web site is new to you, search for the company on the Web and use that link.
• If the e-mail has a photo or video to download, exercise caution. If you know the person who sent the photo it is probably fine to download, but if the photo has been forwarded several times and you do not know the person who sent it originally, be careful. It may well carry a virus or other type of malware.

How to forward (or send) e-mail to a group Always put their e-mail addresses on the BCC (or Blind Carbon Copy) line. This has the advantage of making your message look as if it were sent to each person individually. But more importantly, it keeps everyone's e-mail address private. (Find out more about blind copying and how to do it.)

Think before you click, and save yourself and others from scams, fraud, hoaxes and malware.

Linda