Configuring your email software to automatically add an email signature to outgoing messages can save time and help to promote yourself online. However, some caution is required when using email signatures.
Don’t include unnecessary personal information
I receive many emails from people that include a worrying amount of details in the email signature. These details often include the sender’s full name, street address and phone numbers.
While such information may not exactly be secret, blasting it across the Internet at large is probably not a good idea. Once an email leaves your inbox, you have no control over where it ends up. If it is the type of email that is likely to be forwarded, your personal details may spread far and wide and end up in the evil clutches of scammers, spammers and other undesirables.
If you run a business and use your email signature for promotion, then you have a legitimate reason for including your contact details.
However, if you are just sending private email, I’d suggest that you only include a first name and general locality in your email signature.
Ensure that the signature is appropriate for your recipient.
People often include a catchy saying or quote in their signature. There is even software that can randomly add such snippets. While this is all well and good, some such signature snippets may be adult orientated or otherwise inappropriate for certain recipients.
For example, if you are sending a message to an email discussion group, a signature with “adult” material or link promoting your website might break the group rules.
Thus, it is always a good idea to take a few second to check that your outgoing email signature is appropriate for its intended audience.
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
