If you know anything about the Internet, then you know that Phishing is a scam whereby some unscrupulous contributor to society designs an email to look like it comes from some legitimate business. It's usually a large business because that increase the chances that someone is a client of that business.

After they design this email, they then use a program that generates millions of random emails or they just buy a list of actual emails from another unscrupulous person.

Make sure to check out to the two examples that are attached. They both came to my personal email last night. I actually got aggravated, but then again, it gave me the topic for this week's blog.

The American Express one looked pretty good. If you receive a Phishing email that looks like this, delete it. Do not click on any of the thinks. If you do, you open the door for a virus or spyware and even worse, you click the link and then fill in the information they ask for.

The second email from "Wayne" made me laugh. I responded to "Wayne" and said, "Really Wayne, tell me more!" I should have just deleted it, because by responding, my email is now "active" which means that the scammers know it is a live email.

Just delete these kinds of emails and never click on the links or respond to them.

Officer Larry Jacobs is a Crime Prevention Specialist with the Sandy Springs Police Department. He can be reached at ljacobs@sandyspringsga.gov.