Even with the best junk mail filters at least some of the e-mail you receive is likely to be scam or phishing e-mails. There are however a number of relatively simple steps you can take to spot these straight away.

To start off with I will give you 4 types of e-mail that are almost certainly scams

Almost Certainly a Scam

1. Someone you never heard of is offering you alot of money for helping them do something or for claiming an inheritance.
2. You get an e-mail from a web “lottery” claiming you have won.
3. Official looking e-mail from a bank/ebay/paypal saying your account is at risk of being shut down for some reason. That dont mention any information that specifically identifies you or your account.
4. Official Notification Sent from a free email address (hotmail, yahoo, google etc) or e-mail address that has nothing to do with the company.

Still Not Sure

If you are still not sure there are 2 simple steps you can take to double check if an e-mail is genuine or not

1. Does the e-mail identify you in anyway, as many organisations will have your name or account number included in the e-mail proving that it comes from them.
2. View e-mails as text rather than html. This will remove all the images hiding links and allow you to see where you will actually be going when you click on the link.

Final Safety Steps

You are fairly sure that an e-mail you have received from an organisation is genuine, however to be safe you should NEVER click links in an unsolicited e-mail (one you have not asked for or are not expecting) especially if it requires you to log into an account afterwards. You should instead manually enter the address of the organisation in a browser (or use a bookmark) to ensure you are going to the right site. With some organisations you may also have a copy of the e-mail left in a private messages section as well.

Direct from my junkmail folder comes yet another Nigeria 419 scam

From: mschwar4@gmu.edu [mailto:mschwar4@gmu.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Uzambe
Sent: 06 August 2009 19:48
To: Undisclosed recipients:
Subject: Next of Kin Claim

Attention

First I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction and I pray that my contacting you will be given genuine approval considering the fact that we don’t know each other before. I wish to use this opportunity to introduce myself to you. I am Joseph Uzambe, I am writing to inform you of my desire to invest, and to buy a house in your country.

I am the first son of John Uzambe who was the former Diamond Board Director of Sierra-Leone. My father was attacked by the R U F rebels on his way to Lucia a northern part of Sierra-Leone and my father sustained injuries and he died three days later.

Before he died he revealed to me about the two boxes containing $15 million US dollars, which he deposited with a security company in Ghana for safe keeping. My father did not disclose the content of the boxes to the security company. To avoid the officials from raising eye brows.

Presently I and my brother are here in Ghana to notify the security company of the claims, and we are staying here as Asylum.

Therefore I want you to lecture me on how best we can invest this money in your country, because my father told me that it is dangerous to invest in Africa to avoid suspicions, and due to market instabilities coupled with economic and political situation facing Africa for your assistance myself and my brother have agreed to offer you 30% of the total amount of the money as your commission.

We have all the vital documents covering the deposit and the ownership which I can send to you.

Note, I have never disclosed this transaction to anybody apart from you. So please keep it very confidential.

Joseph Uzambe

Tel: +233 24 0488 422