Yahoo! Mail Blog

Let’s face it, spammers and phishers are a right pain. And for those of you looking to educate yourselves and to find ways to stay ahead of the spammers and scammers, I’ve got some good news for you. We’ve just launched a new Yahoo Mail Security site (uk.antispam.yahoo.com).

In it, you’ll find great tips on dealing with spammers, viruses and phishing. And like I’ve told you before, there is no Yahoo! Lottery and you will not win a boatload of cash from an unsolicited email. But with our new security center you can win the fight against spam.

Happy emailing,
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Team

We regret to inform you that you did not win the Yahoo! lottery. Because there is no Yahoo! lottery. Please don’t send us money to claim your “winnings.”

Like other highly-visible brands, ours is a tempting one for fraudsters to hitch their wagons to. You probably have received an email or maybe even a text message on your mobile notifying you of a fabulous windfall you’ve won in a Yahoo! lottery. It usually tells you to send money or your account details. Don’t fall for it!!!!

We will never send you an email about a lottery or contest you never entered. And even though the email might look like it’s from Yahoo!, it’s not. Anyone with a Yahoo! account has a Yahoo! email address. These are unsolicited emails that should be ignored and deleted. They are usually poorly written with lots of grammatical and spelling mistakes. For example, take a look at this excerpt from the one of the most recent scams I’ve seen:

“So we appeal to you to have a bite patients to enable our Account Department carryout their works more effectively for smooth and sucessful tansfer of your winning prize $ 0ne million us dollars without any delay…”

And as more folks are getting wise to the scams, the scammers are getting more and more creative. They are employing more tricks like using pictures of the Yahoo! campus and even our logo (they get these from pictures that are available to anyone online).

As ridiculous as some of these cons may seem, we take them very seriously. Our Yahoo! Mail Abuse team looks into all reports of these scams and takes appropriate action. Plus, we are currently evaluating new filtering technology that may be effective in catching scams like this.

In the meantime, if you receive a message claiming to be from Yahoo! notifying you of a cash prize, please let us know! Just forward the message to mail-spoof@cc.yahoo-inc.com. Include the full email header (info on how to do that is here). The full header shows us the route the email took to get to your Inbox and helps us track down the culprits.

Our team really hates these scams — maybe even more than you. So help us knock them out before they hit someone else’s inbox.

Happy emailing!
Andrew – Yahoo Mail Team

Are you like I was? Always sneaking back to your Mailbox to check if you’d got any messages. Well, if you’ve got a Yahoo! Toolbar, all that hassle can be a distant memory.

Mail Alerts
Looking at the feedback that you send us, it seems that you’re on the lookout for a way to be alerted when you get new mail in your inbox. So for this tip, I’m suggesting the Yahoo! Toolbar if you’re looking for a way to get notification for the arrival of new messages.

The Y! Toolbar has got lots of cool features, like blocking pop ups and a box to search the web from. But, for me, the best thing is the Mail button. Because, wherever you are on the web, the minute you get mail a little alert will pop up on the Toolbar to let you know. From there, it’s one click to your inbox.

Want the Yahoo! Toolbar? It’s free, find out more here. There’s a version for IE and Firefox.

If you’ve already got it you can add the Mail button (if it’s not there already). All it takes is one click here.

One Toolbar is plenty
By the way, one toolbar is enough – if you’ve got a bunch of the things, which you don’t use, just get rid of them. Ther’s a couple of ways to do that (on Windows at least), navigate to the control panel (from the Start Menu), enter Control Panel, open Add/Remove Programs and REMOVE the toolbars you don’t want.

Alternatively, you can click View, then click Toolbars and un-check the ones you don’t want to see. Amazingly it works the same for Firefox and IE. Good riddance.

Happy Emailing!
Andrew – Yahoo Mail Team

The Classic version of Yahoo! Mail is great. But I think the all-new Yahoo! Mail is even better. What’s not to love: Chat with your friends directly in Mail, drag and drop, improved search, new colors and that’s just to name a few.

Want to switch to the all-new mail to try out some of these great features? Here’s how:

Take a look at the image above. Just click the link “Try the new Yahoo! Mail”. With just one click you are taken directly to the new version of Yahoo! Mail.

Have a play around, and if you’re not convinced it fantastic, you can always switch back. The choice is yours. Here’s how to switch back.

Happy emailing,
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Team