Mike has five brothers and sisters, so he watches every penny when buying Christmas presents. He knew his youngest brother, a budding artist, had his heart set on a new photo-editing program this year, but when Mike did some online shopping, he saw that it was way out of his price range. A couple of days later, though, Mike got an email advertising the photo-editing software for half of what it sold for in stores. It seemed like too good a deal to pass up, so he went to the Web site listed in the email and entered his credit card information.
The software eventually arrived, and Mike was thrilled to see the smile on his brother's face on Christmas morning. But that good feeling didn't last long. The next week, Mike's brother called him and told him that the software wouldn't work on his computer - and worse, it had installed a damaging virus on his machine. His computer had to be fixed, and Mike's "gift" ended up costing his brother money!
"I will never buy anything from a spam email again," said Mike, "no matter how good the price is. I can't believe that I gave these people my credit card number! Who knows what they'll do with it!"
To learn how to protect yourself from spam scams, see E-commerce
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