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
- Someone you never heard of is offering you alot of money for helping them do something or for claiming an inheritance.
- You get an e-mail from a web “lottery” claiming you have won.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
