I will try to provide more practical info about online scams here. In return, please, please, please be sure to share this post with everyone you consider at risk of falling victim to one of the many scams around. And there are so many people at risk…  According to the NSW Fair Trading website “every year 1 in 20 Aussies fall victim to scams.”

“Scams target everyone regardless of background, age and income and they come in many forms and reach you in many ways – by mail, online through e-mail, telephone and door-to-door. Scams are often designed to trick you into giving away your money or your personal details. Scams succeed because they look like the real thing. Scammers are manipulative – they push the right buttons to produce the response they want.”

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission run the SCAMwatch website, which provides information to consumers and small businesses about how to recognise, avoid and report scams.  One common type of online scam is called ‘requests for your account information’ or ‘phishing scams’.

“Phishing refers to emails that trick people into giving out their personal and banking information; they can also be sent by SMS. These messages seem to come from legitimate businesses, normally banks or other financial institutions or telecommunications providers. The scammers are generally trying to get information like your bank account numbers, passwords and credit card numbers, which they will then use to steal your money. Phishing emails often look genuine and use what look to be genuine internet addresses—in fact, they often copy an institution’s logo and message format, which is very easy to do. It is also common for phishing messages to contain links to websites that are convincing fakes of real companies’ home pages. The website that the scammer’s email links to will have an address (URL) that is similar to but not the same as a real bank’s or financial institution’s site. For example, if the genuine site is at ‘www.realbank.com.au’, the scammer may use an address like ‘www.realbank.com.au.log107.biz’ or ‘www.phoneybank.com/realbank.com.au/login’.”

The following information was extracted from the SCAMWatch site:

Warning signs

• You receive an email or SMS claiming to be from a financial institution, telecommunication or email provider. This message may seem to be from your bank, service or email provider or a business you don’t have an account with. The email contains a link that leads you to a website where you are prompted to enter your bank account details or email account details.
• The email does not address you by your proper name.
• The email might contain typing errors and grammatical mistakes.
• The email might claim that your details are needed for a security and maintenance upgrade, to ‘verify’ your account or to protect you from a fraud threat. The email might even state that you are due to receive a refund for a bill or other fee that it claims you have been charged.

Protect yourself from phishing scams

• NEVER send money or give credit card or online account details to anyone you do not know and trust.
• Do not give out your personal, credit card or online account details over the phone unless you made the call and know that the phone number came from a trusted source.
• Do not open suspicious or unsolicited emails (spam)—ignore them. You can report spam to Australian Communications and Media Authority. If you do not wish to report the message, delete it.
• Do not click on any links in a spam email or open any files attached to them.
• Never call a telephone number that you see in a spam email or SMS.
• If you want to access an internet account website, use a bookmarked link or type the address in yourself—NEVER follow a link in an email.
• Check the website address carefully. Scammers often set up fake websites with very similar addresses.
• Never enter your personal, credit card or online account information on a website if you are not certain it is genuine.
• Never send your personal, credit card or online account details through an email.

As well as following these specific tips, find out how to protect yourself from all sorts of other scams. Download our Phishing scams fact sheet for more information.

Do your homework

If you receive an email claiming to be from a bank, other financial institution, telecommunications or email provider that asks you to enter your details—delete it! A legitimate bank or financial institution will NEVER send an email like this.

If the email appears to be from your bank or financial institution and you think it might be genuine, telephone your bank or financial institution to let them know about the email and ask their advice. DO NOT call any telephone number listed in the email; instead, use a phone number that appears on your bank statement or card or in the telephone directory. Many banks and financial institutions now have specialised internet security staff that can help you.

Decide

You should NEVER give your personal or bank account details to people you don’t know and trust. Don’t be fooled by an email that looks legitimate or appears to link to a genuine website. If you think the email may be genuine, ALWAYS contact your bank to confirm an email’s legitimacy before replying. Your best defence is to delete the email straight away.

For me, this paragraph summarises everything:

“My top advice is to be mindful of any Web page that requests your Yahoo! password. The #1 way people get their passwords stolen is by typing them into lookalike “phishing” web sites, pages that pretend to be Yahoo! or another trusted Web site but actually are run by the bad guys. Scrutinise carefully any page that requests your Yahoo! password.” – Mark Risher, Director of Product Management for Mail.

For more tips and information on how to keep yourself and your computer safe online, check this post on our Yahoo!7 Answers Blog.

If you’ve reached this post and you’ve already fallen victim to a phishing scam with your Yahoo!7 Mail account, read this post to find out what to do next.

Finally, please report any suspicious emails to Yahoo!7 Customer Care via this form.

Cheers,
Tasla – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

Yahoo!7 Messenger for Windows has many more features than most of us use in a given day. Our preferences menu is chock full of useful settings that can help you customise your Yahoo!7 Messenger or make you a more efficient user.

One preference I always set when I upgrade to a new version is “Always use my fonts and colours” (Messenger > Preferences > Appearance). That means that no matter what quirky font, colour or size my friends use when they message me, it will always show up in the style I prefer (Arial, 12 for anyone who’s keeping track). I think I discovered this after my college roommate kept insisting on IMs with fluorescent green Tahoma letters in size 16.

While I like to think of myself as young, my aging eyes do betray me. I got tired of squinting at my list to find a friend so a few years ago, I changed my preferences to increase the font size of my contact list (you can also change the font). You can even have online friends show up in bold so they’re more noticeable. You’ll find this ageist setting in Preferences > Appearance, under the Messenger List section.

We’ve all dealt with random people IM’ing us. Sometimes we know them, sometimes they are spammers. To help me quickly separate the riff raff from my real friends, I changed my preference to “When I receive messages from people not on my Messenger list, show the messages in a single list” (Messenger > Preferences > Messages). That way, the messages are all listed in one window and I can quickly reply or ignore them (or mark them as spam). They appear in a window that looks similar to the one used for offline messages.

On the efficiency tip are a couple of shortcuts that may come in handy. If you’re like me and leave your Messenger window open all day long, you can save a step when it comes time to shut down at the end of the day. Under Preferences > General you’ll find a setting for “Sign out of Messenger when I close the main window”. Select that and save yourself the extra step of signing out and then closing down Messenger.

And last but not least is a shortcut you can use to update your status message more quickly. You may already know about the Windows + y shortcut, but do you know the Windows + Shift + y shortcut? That one takes you right to the waiting status message menu where you can start typing your deep thoughts and important updates. For this to work, you first have to enable it under Preferences > General; look for the checkbox that says “Enable system-wide shortcut keys to activate Messenger”.

What are some of your favourite settings, shortcuts, tips or tricks in Yahoo!7 Messenger? Leave a comment to let us know.

You can find a full list of emoticons currently available to Yahoo!7 users, here.

But did you know there is also an easter egg inside Yahoo!7 Messenger 9 and 10? That’s right, there are hidden emoticons!

Check out the conversation I was having with Tasla from our Mail team above, using some of the normal and some of the hidden emoticons! See how they liven up our conversation?

Be sure to check out the complete list of hidden emoticons and let us know which one is your favourite!

Happy chatting,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Messenger Team

But fear not, the fix is simple, it’s a setting within your mail options!

If you are using the All-New Mail, do the following:

1. Click on “Options”, this can be found at the top-right when in Mail.
2. Select “Mail Options” from the drop-down menu.
3. On the General page, the second option is a tick box to “Save a copy of the message in the Sent folder”. Ensure there is a tick in this box.
4. Click on “Save Changes” and then head back to your Inbox.

If you are using Classic mail, do the following:

1. Click on “Options”, this can be found at the top-right when in Mail.
2. On the General page, about halfway down, is a tick box to “Save a copy of the message in the Sent folder”. Ensure there is a tick in this box.
3. Click on “Save Changes” and then head back to your Inbox.

I hope that some of you find this tip useful

Happy Emailing,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

With that in mind, they have teamed up with leading etiquette expert Jean Broke Smith to form a guide on how to email without offending someone

Andrew of the Yahoo! Mail Team posted the following definitive guide to email etiquette:

Do….create the right impression and banish the BTWs. People react to email within seconds of receiving it. As the Yahoo! research shows, text speak can be very annoying and shows a lack of correct spelling ability and laziness. It won’t impress!

Don’t… offend. Using capitals is the email equivalent of SHOUTING and is perceived as being extremely rude, so make sure your caps lock is switched off.

Do…. include a subject line. You’ve got three seconds to grab attention when an email appears and by not including a subject in the email, the chances of it being read are greatly reduced. Use the subject line for the purpose it was made and tell people what the email is about.

Don’t… use read receipts. Read receipts demonstrate a distinct lack of trust, so avoid where possible. Follow up with a phone call if you want to ensure your message has reached the right person.

Do… remember the recipient. The failsafe method for emailing is to imagine you are writing a succinct letter. Address the recipient in the correct manner and title. You can be light hearted and humorous as in any written communication, it is a just a matter of judgment. But if you don’t know the recipient, don’t be over familiar and sign off with the right degree of formality.

Don’t…. use CC and BCC unnecessarily. The no. 2 email bug bear is mass distribution of emails, so exercise constraint when it comes to copying people in. If the email is important to other people, simply forward to them at the end, rather than them being caught up in a never-ending email trail. Likewise use the BCC button wisely, again forward emails separately rather than ‘hiding’ other recipients.

Do… take your time. Because of the instant nature of emails it is tempting to deal with them immediately, but rushing an email can lead to errors. Deal with them promptly but don’t panic and reply in haste and always check what you have written before you hit send.

Don’t… over use ‘importance’. Before you even consider using a red exclamation mark, ask yourself is this really important? Only use when it is vital that the email is read, otherwise you are drawing unnecessary attention to yourself and it is a quick way of irritating recipients.

Do…save the kisses. Over familiarity towards your boss or work colleagues is bad etiquette, keep the love and kisses for very good friends.

Don’t… email when angry. If you receive a ‘harsh’ email, read it through, then close it and walk away. Consider your response and if necessary ask someone else to read your reply before you send it, don’t fight fire with fire.

Do… choose a sensible email address. Common sense tells you that you are less likely to land a job if you use a frivolous email address, such as, crazychick@yahoo.co.uk. Think about what your email address says about you as it’s an insight into your personality.

Don’t… hide behind email. It is often easier to write something in words than it is to say it out loud, but don’t say something on email that you wouldn’t say in person. Emails have longevity and it can come back to haunt you!

What are some of your email pet peeves?

Have a great weekend,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

O.K., this post is about how to access your Yahoo!7 Mail on your internet-enabled mobile phone, in case you haven’t ever tried that before – like me!

Well, and it’s not just Mail that you can easily access on your mobile phone, other Yahoo!7 services are also available: oneSearch, Yahoo!7 Messenger, Flickr, Yahoo!7 News, Yahoo!7 Weather, Yahoo!7 Finance, Yahoo!7 Sports and Yahoo!7 Entertainment.

But since this is the Yahoo!7 Mail Blog, I will focus this post on the Mail experience only. You can certainly learn all about the Yahoo!7 Mobile world by visiting the Mobile site and, copying what the site headline says – “You’ll be amazed at what you can do with your phone”.

 Back to Mail now. For a general overview, you can start by visiting the Yahoo!7 Mobile/Mail website. But if you want to get started right away, simply type this URL into your phone’s browser: au.m.yahoo.com

Now, if you’ve got an iPhone® or a BlackBerry® smartphone, there is some good news for you: Yahoo!7 Mail has been enhanced for these phone devices, offering the best mail experience available!

One of the advantages of accessing your Yahoo!7 Mail account on an iPhone® is that Yahoo! Mail is the only email service that automatically “pushes” email to your iPhone® right as it comes in, so you get your email in real time, all the time. So here’s how to get Yahoo!7 Mail on your iPhone®:

If this is your first mail account, simply:

1. Select Mail
2. Select Y! Mail (it’s listed first because it’s the best!)
3. Input your name, email address and password. All done!

If you already have a mail account and would like to add another:

1. Select Settings
2. Select the Mail option
3. Select Add Account
4. Select Y! Mail
5. Input your name, email address and password. You’re set!

And for Blackberry® users, everything you do with your Yahoo!7 Mail on your PC you can do on your smartphone. Keep in touch with friends and family – wherever and whenever. To get started with Yahoo!7 Mail on your BlackBerry® smartphone, you will need a Yahoo!7 Mail account wireless access, and BlackBerry® Internet Service (BIS).

1. Click on the Personal Email Setup icon from your home screen.

2. Read and agree to the Terms and Conditions.

3. Enter your Yahoo!7 email address and password, and then click Next.

4. Select OK to confirm account setup.

And everything that I’ve showed you here is just the tip of the iceberg… There’s also Yahoo! Go, “the best Internet experience for your phone” – a great all-in one solution that lets you enjoy the internet on your phone. Just type this URL into your phone’s browser to get started: get.go.yahoo.com

We hope you enjoy the experience of anytime, every time access to your Yahoo!7 Mail on your phone!

Cheers,

Tasla – Yahoo!7 Mail team

Ok, what’s all this then?
Well, basically speaking, your Messenger list loads within your mailbox and can have a live conversation with someone from within your Yahoo!7 Mail mailbox. You can talk this way with anyone who has a Yahoo!7 or Windows Live™ Messenger ID. That’s almost everyone isn’t it?

Here’s how!
When you log into your mailbox you will see a blue box down the right-hand column, directly under the box containing your Inbox, Spam, Trash and so forth.

It should look something like this:

By selecting the drop-down menu, you will be able to log in to Chat by selecting that you are “Available”.

Please remember that if you regularly use Yahoo!7 Messenger, you will be signed out of the client once you log in via Mail.

You can also access chat by selecting “Compose” and choosing “Chat”. You will then be prompted to sign-in if you have not already done so.

You should now be logged in, with your Chat contacts list showing in the right-hand menu of your Mail, like I am in the example below:

So I’ve got Chat running, now what?
Now that you are up and running, the rest is easy!

To talk to any of your friends that are online, simply double-click their name in the contact list and a chat window will appear in the bottom-right of your screen. You can then happily chat away to your heart’s content

How do I add my friends?
If you have a friend you wish to add to your Chat list, click upon the “[Add]” option on your Chat window.

You will then be prompted to choose from the drop-down shown below, whether they are a Yahoo!7 or Windows Live user. Yes, you read that correct, you may chat to any of your MSN friends via Yahoo!7 Messenger and Chat within Yahoo!7 Mail!

Once you have typed in their details, simply click “Save” and your friend will receive a notification that you wish to add them.

Chat away!
Using the chat window itself is very easy, when you are chatting with a friend in Classic Mail, a small window will pop-up in the bottom-right of your screen.

In this example, you can see that I am chatting with someone using Windows Live Messenger. It clearly identifies they are using Windows Live Messenger and it shows their status, in this case I am busy working

If you are a fan of smilies or emoticons, well we have those too!

What else can I do?
You may hold multiple conversations at once, as seen below where I am chatting to myself on Windows Live Messenger and about to start a conversation with Morgan.

You may also minimise or maximise the Chat window at any time you wish, or close it entirely.

In addition, you can also collapse the Chat list itself, by selecting “[Hide]“. Clicking “[Show]” will expand the list once more. By clicking upon “Settings” at the base of the Chat list, you can choose to mute or enable sounds, or reposition the window around the other folders in your right-hand menu.

If you require any further assistance, please check out our comprehensive Help section on Chat in Classic Mail

Be sure to come back and let us know what you think!

Happy Chatting,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

Yahoo!7 now allows you to share updates from third parties such as Twitter, Blogger and YouTube to your connections, making it easier to keep up with friends and family. And even better, with the update management tool, you can choose just who see’s what… Meaning you can share everything with the world, just your connections, or if you don’t want people seeing anything, hide them from view completely.

Let’s meet the Smith family!

John and his wife Jennifer are users of Yahoo!7 mail, along with Jennifer’s father Joe and their teenage son James, they swap a lot of emails and use the web for many different things. Added to the mix is James’ girlfriend Renee, and all have added each other to their connections via Yahoo!7 Mail.

• Jennifer likes to upload photos to share with friends and family.
• Joe likes to listen to old classics using online radio.
• Renee keeps up with her friends using different social networking tools.
• James is a fan of online videos and maintains a blog.

With updates from your connections, you can keep up with all of this right from your Inbox, which is perfect for John as he is often busy and seeing what everyone is up to at a glance saves him time.

So how does all of this work you ask? Well, let’s take a look at James’ mail inbox…

To access your profile from your Inbox, either click on the Profile link as shown in James’ Inbox above or navigate directly to http://au.profiles.yahoo.com/.

To access your Updates, select the Updates tab as shown above.

You can see here that James is already seeing photos his Mum has uploaded to Picasa, a tweet that Renee posted on Twitter and he can see what his Grandpa has been listening to on Last.fm. From there, click on the Share More link.

Under Share More, you can see that James already has Blogger and YouTube set to share with his Yahoo!7 connections. To add another site to your Updates, either search for a common user or nickname you may use on the Internet, enter the exact user name or web address. It’s really that easy!

By clicking on Manage My Updates, you can choose the level of privacy for each site you add:

• Anyone: anyone can see that update.
• My Connections: only your connections may see that update
• No One: Only you will see that update.

You will also find an option directly below this option which will allow you to set privacy levels for different Yahoo!7 sites and services, as well as which ones you wish to be notified about.

You can currently add Updates from 18 different third party sites, some of which include:

• Twitter
• YouTube
• Blogger
• Picasa
• Webshots
• Vimeo
• TravelPod
• Last.fm
• Vox

So why not go check it out and let us know what you think!

Happy Updating,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

One issue we heard from you was that the amount of email you receive from friends, family, newsletters, marketing emails and of course spam (the good, the bland and the ugly) has become overwhelming to the point where you find it difficult to find the emails that are really important to you. We’re going to fix this.

Another issue was in regards to attachment size limits. In this digital age, media storage capacity has outpaced the email send/receive limits. For example, 10 years ago I didn’t even own a digital camera, where as today my camera takes photos of a few megabytes in size, sending them via email is a pain as I have to resize them manually.  We’re going to fix this too.

Big claims I know so let’s take you through what we’re doing.  Here at Yahoo! we’ve dubbed the changes “A Smarter Inbox”.  The first smart thing is allowing you to “connect” to the people who are most important to you (learn more about connections).  For example let’s say you get emails from your estate agent, your partner and your mother, you may want to connect to your partner and your mother but not the estate agent.  If your mum accepts the invitation the next time you get an email from them you’ll be able to see their message directly on the Mail Welcome page, so no more trawling through your inbox to find the emails which matter.

This “smarter” benefit doesn’t stop there though.  If you go into the inbox or any other folder you have created within mail you can click on the “connections” button and filter out all the mail which isn’t from your most important connections. So again you can see that we’ve improved your email experience.

A further benefit of these changes is the ability for you to see “updates” from your connections on the Mail Welcome page.  For now these “updates” are things that your contacts do on Yahoo! This will open up in the next month to include other websites like YouTube and Blogger. Learn more about Updates.

Rome wasn’t built in a day so we’re not changing the email attachment size today. For now the send receive limit is going to stay at 10MB per email.  In the not so distant future we’re going to give our mail users the ability to share massive files of up to 1GB at any one time, pretty useful for sharing video, music and heaps of photos over email.  We’re very excited about this feature as coupled with our already unlimited storage we’ll be able to offer a truly unlimited email experience.

So to recap today we’re launching a redesigned Mail Welcome page that gives you a “smarter inbox” including these features:

• Connections: Users can “connect” with others using Yahoo!’s universal profile service and designate the people whose messages and activity updates are most important to them.
• Filtered View of the Inbox and Folders: Yahoo!7 Mail users can now view a prioritised view of the inbox and folders based on their connections.
• New Welcome Page with Messages from Connections and Updates: Users receive a preview of messages from their connections, see connection suggestions made by Yahoo!, and have the ability to send and receive connection invitations. Users can also see activity Update feeds from their connections, including activity across Yahoo! and, in the future, across the Web.

We’ve got two videos that you can watch to help you understand the changes  – they can viewed here:

Lasso Larry

and here:

Mail Overview

BTW, these changes are only available to every user of the Australian Yahoo!7 Mail and a limited number of users of the US mail product. 

We’d love to hear what you think of the changes and we’ll do our very best to answer your questions.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Morgan and the rest of the Yahoo!7 Mail team

And e-mails don’t have to be boring, with the addition of Stationery, you can give your mail that bit of flair to make it almost as good as the card you might have sent, Mum will never know the difference!

If you are not too sure what Stationery is or how to use it, be sure to check out Will’s post over here.

Here’s a quick guide to the different Stationery options that you may like to use for your Christmas and holiday e-mails…

  Featured -> Liam: Party

  Abstract -> Green Fantasia

Abstract -> Kaleidoscopes

Flowers -> Orchids

Holidays and Events -> Christmas

Holidays and Events -> Happy Holidays

Holidays and Events -> Joy and Prosperity

Holidays and Events -> Snow (Blue)

Holidays and Events -> Stars (Blue)

The above selections are only a few of the different types of Stationery available in the All-New Mail. Why not go try it, then come back and let us know what your favourite is? Which reminds me, I better e-mail my Mum and Dad pronto!

Happy holiday e-mailing,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team