Email Address Pitfalls

[widgitmaster]

Email Address Pitfalls
(Proper use of POP3 & SMTP addresses)

Most people today have a POP3 (Post Office Protocol v3) email address or two, they use them in their everyday life with ease. There are pitfalls we all need to be aware of, and its not the Viruses and Worms in the attachments! To avoid these future problems and pitfalls, you need to get a web based SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) email address like: Yahoo!, HotMail, Juno, etc. This will become a rock solid and constant email address, and they’re free!
The biggest pitfall is signing up for online services like a virus scanning account or an online bank account, where we all provide personal information including an email address. These addresses are frequently used for logging in and are usually combined with a password. The pitfall is changing your ISP (Internet Access Provider), job or other source for the POP3 email address. When your account is closed, your email is cancelled! The other Pitfall is the frequent sale of your address to mass-marketing enterprises by those trusted online services. This increases the quantity of junk mail and spam flowing toward your inbox! Online email providers have excellent filters to trap the bulk of spam, and none of it goes on your hard drive, or chokes up your internet connection!
Most online services will allow you to change or update your email address. However, if your old one is defunct, it becomes a real problem! The solution is to use a web-based email address when you sign up for online services, not the address from an ISP. Over the years, many of us have jumped from one ISP to another for various reasons, either for price savings, or for increased access speeds. To avoid the pitfalls you should obtain an online web based email address and keep the POP3 address private!

Oh yeah,
Don't open attachments from people you do not know!

[NC Cams]

A friend has a web based business and has had more fraud out of the web based e-mails (IE: hotmail, juno, etc). Seems that folks have found ways to forge headers from these outfits, buy stuff and then refuse to pay for it afterwards (contest the purchase claiming they didn't buy it even though you can prove that they did).

Paypal really hoses you when that happens. They back charge the vendor and then add a handling fee on top just to insult you more - you're considered guilty of fraud even if/when Paypal processed the transaction and didn't check/verify that the user was the 'real' user - you pay for their lame ass, lazy lack of service/security.

For this reason, too much fraud, he won't even do business anymore with anyone who uses the web based e-mail services that you mention.

Treat your ISP mail box just like the one that you use for "official" use by the US Postal System. Yes, by all means keep the POP3 private.

Better yet, don't give out your e-mail to anybody, don't accept cookies, and don't acknowledge reciept of unasked for mail and don't, DON'T click anyplace on a spam to have your name removed from an e-mail list - you'll only get TONS MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, don't be surprised if folks won't take your free e-mail account seriously - now you know why.