Phishing, Scamming, and Hacking: Another Epidemic This Year

Just about a year ago, on 17 June 2019, our weekly blog addressed the issue of protecting yourself online. At that time, many of us were being inundated with phony emails asking for money, gift cards, and the phony "rescuing" of friends in need. That blog post lists ways you can protect yourself and we hope you will click on the link at the end of this post to refresh your memory on ways you can stay safe. All of those hints are still quite useful.

How StLGS Members Can Help the Society

Recently, StLGS members received a letter from our president asking for donations to the society. As we approach the holiday season, we hope you will find some space in your end-of-year planning to support StLGS.

Unlike some larger non-profits, StLGS is funded completely by donations, dues, and sales. We have no grants or benefactors. What we do is only possible because of your donations. Every dollar that comes into our office goes towards fulfilling our mission: "promoting family history research by providing educational and research opportunities, offering community services, and collecting, preserving, and publishing genealogical and historical records."

Our all-volunteer staff continues to work tirelessly:

• Assisting researchers, answering questions, and greeting visitors
• Offering members free classes and lecturing and teaching throughout the community
• Scanning, indexing, and proofreading a wide assortment of original records
• Posting new data to the website, creating new web pages and informational flyers, publishing our Quarterly journal, and curating this blog, and our Facebook and Twitter feeds 
• Planning exciting programs and events for the coming year

Updated Technology

Because our website and our office computer network are so vital to our ability to communicate with the public, we must keep both entities protected and current. Website security is maintained by an off-site professional company, a fixed expense we willingly pay. Volunteers maintain the integrity of our office network. Next year, we will upgrade our office software and increase the level of security in our office network.

New Projects and Data

We also are actively exploring livestreaming, webinars, and other online options to expand our classes and meetings to out-of-town members. Our website continues to grow with the addition of more congregations, biographies, and other St. Louis-related material. You can always discover what is new by going to the New On This Site page.

How Can You Help?

Any amount you can send will be much appreciated, and we hope you will use the envelope you received to return a check or credit card donation. Your gift to StLGS is tax deductible to the extent allowed by current law.

Matching Donations, Amazon Smile, and Schnucks eScrip

Because StLGS is a not-for-profit 501(C)(3) organization, we qualify for matching donation funds from companies that offer them. In the past, we have received matching funds from AT&T, MasterCard, and Boeing. Does your employer support matching donations? If so, please think of earmarking your donation to StLGS that way.

For the past five years, we have also been a member of the smile.amazon.com donation program. If you are planning to shop online this holiday season, please log on to https://smile.amazon.com and choose St. Louis Genealogical Society as the recipient of your donation. It costs you nothing, but Amazon will donate a portion of every one of your purchases to the society.

In addition, Schnucks grocery stores still accept eScrip/Community cards. You cannot, however, use them with the current rewards program, but if you choose to forego your personal points, you can still designate rewards to go to the charity of your choice. If you have an eScrip/Community card, please select StLGS as the recipient of your points. They turn into dollars for us! You can learn more about the eScrip program on the eScrip website.

All of these programs are open to all. If you have friends or relatives who would like to join you in supporting the society, please encourage them to do so.

From the bottom of our hearts . . .

Safety First: Protect Yourself Online

Along with those dozens of annoying robocalls, it seems to be open season for online scamming. If you have good filters on your email, you may never see most of the deluge of emails that are meant to be stealing your money and/or your identity because they will be sent directly to your spam or junk mail folders. However, even with the best attempts at filtering, inevitably, some of those messages get through and you may be tempted to open an attachment, click on a link, or, worse still, actually send someone a gift card or credit card number.

This attempt to steal from you online is called phishing. Pronounced "fishing," it is meant for you to take the bait so a criminal can reel you in! Just in the past few weeks, your blogger has received an email from a known contact asking for a gift card for her nephew, two emails purportedly from Apple asking to click on a link to reenter account information, and masses of emails from "Google" saying files were corrupt, photos unavailable, and mail was going to be deleted, none of which was true.

How can you protect yourself, especially if you aren't really tech savvy?

• First, be smart! Don't fall for emails asking for anything of value, even if you know the person asking. Call or text the person in question and verify whether he or she actually sent you the email before taking any action. 
• Learn to look at who really sent an email before you respond to it. Most emails have a "Reply-To" line with the name of the sender. If you click on the sender's name, you will see the actual email address from which the note came. Many fake emails don't have the Reply-To visible, but there is still a way to see who sent the email. In the example to the right, clicking on the "Google Notify" line yielded the hidden address, which you can see is clearly NOT from Google.
• Don't ever click on a link in a message that seems to be from a company but has grammatical or spelling mistakes. It is very rare that a message from a major company is sent out with those kinds of errors. If you aren't sure about something, go to the website yourself by typing in the address, or call the company.
• Make sure your passwords are safe. Don't use simple words like "password" or "onetwothree." Your passwords should have combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols and be unique for each website. Plan on changing passwords if and when you think they might have been compromised.
• Most important, be proactive. Stay alert and aware so you don't become a victim of scamming! You can also report phishing attempts to the company who supposedly sent them to you. Most have dedicated abuse email addresses to which you can forward suspicious emails. Don't, however, expect a response, as they seldom do answer, but that doesn't mean they aren't taking action.