American Greetings Offers Simple Reminders on How to Stay Protected This Mother’s Day

CLEVELAND, May 5 — American Greetings Corporation, in response to potential email scams that typically occur during major holidays, is providing the public with some helpful tips to ensure the safe receipt of their Mother’s Day online greetings.

Celebrating Mom through online greetings is a popular trend. In fact, Mother’s Day ranks among the top five holidays in terms of e-cards sent from the American Greetings family of Web sites. To be sure that you avoid any potentially harmful e-mails, Dan Miller, vice president of Product Management at AG Interactive, a division of American Greetings Corporation, offers the following suggestions:

• Be cautious: If you have any suspicion that the e-card you have received is fraudulent, do not open the e-mail, and do not click on any links within the body of the message if you do. Legitimate e-mails will always give you the option to pick up the e-card by typing in the address of the Web site, rather than clicking on the link.
• Make sure you recognize the sender’s name: The name of the sender should always be visible in the subject line of the e-mail, or within the e-mail itself. If you do not recognize the sender’s name or the sender’s name is not visible, proceed with caution.
• Be sure to look for the Web site: The Web site should be identifiable in one or more of the following areas: the “from” field, the subject line or the body of the e-mail itself. If no site is listed, or you do not recognize the site, proceed with caution.
• Do not follow any links with a simple IP address: Sometimes the IP address is hidden beneath the link and can only be seen by positioning your cursor over the link or right clicking on the link to view properties. The link should start with the domain of the Web site (i.e.http://www.americangreetings.com ) and not a series of numbers commonly referred to as an IP address.