Aren’t e-cards great? I love them. Especially when I’m very late remembering someone’s birthday, or forgot about Mother’s Day until the Saturday before. Even if I think about it on the day of the event, then I can immediately zip of a cute e-card and not feel so guilty.

But, as is often the case, some have taken a good thing, and made it bad. In this case, scams and malware.

According to the FBI’s cyber division, cyber criminals try to fool “potential victims” by sending e-mails with e-card attachments. These attachments contain malware that “unleash(es) phishing and vishing attacks.” Basically, it’s a scam designed to steal your personal information.

Have you gotten an email with a fake e-card before? Usually the sender is “a friend,” or another vague description.

Don’t open any e-cards that do not have the fulll name of the sender. Also ignore any e-cards from senders that you don’t know.

Scammers will go to great lengths to appear legitimate, like take the name and logo of a real company. Check for typos and grammatical errors, and look at the URL to see if it’s odd or just a little off.

If you’re suspicious of an e-card, don’t click on the link in your email. Go to the legitimate site to see if  you really have an e-card waiting for you.

One thing I’ve found with these e-card scams is that my email account does a great job spotting the fakes for me. Most end up as junk mail before I even look at them.

Now that you’re scared of even sending e-cards to friends, co-workers and family, I have another tip. Send linkless e-cards. You can find some examples at VerveCards.com. Their linkless cards are emailed directly to the recipient, no links required.

And, these cards are funny, not silly. I like their sense of humor.

Good news for our readers – we have a one year membership to VerveCards to give away. All you have to do is comment and tell us who you would send your first e-card to. We’ll hold  a drawing for this membership next Friday, May 6.

If you don’t want to wait until then to sign up, VerveCards has also agreed to offer a 2-for-1 coupon for all begreenminded readers. Just use the code: BGMVERVE.

And, please vote in our poll. Let us know how you feel about sending e-cards.

(polls)

Since Mother’s Day is next Sunday, would Mom be your first recipient? I think my husband would enjoy some of these cards, so I would send one to him.