Is this a genuine request from Windows Live Customer Care?

[John Wright]

Use your mouse to 'hover' over site links or email links and you see where they really are at. Anything unfamiliar is dodgy.

You already see the email is cocacolakids@.... wasn't that a good enough clue???

[french frank]

This is the sort of phrase to look out for: any element of "threat" is designed to create a sense of urgency in the reader. No "legit" company is going to risk losing a customer like this.

That reminded me that a few weeks ago I had an email from my Nice Bank (Triodos) saying that I hadn't accessed my online account for almost a year and I should do so at once if I didn't want it closed (i.e. the online access, not the account itself!). It contained a link to their website. In fact, I used my bookmarked link and logged in.

It was only after reading this thread that I thought to ring them - out of interest - to check if the email was genuine. It was, and I expressed surprise that they'd included a link. Not that there's any security risk when the message is genuine.

I used to get bombarded with false emails from 'high street banks' starting 'Dear Customer', even though I didn't have an account with them. The web and email addresses looked genuine, and the website would have looked genuine too if I'd clicked on the link. I'm not sure whether these operations have been shut down but I haven't had any such messages lately, not even in my spam folder.