Spammers and scammers are quite excellent at creating junk and spam emails that appear credible, but maybe some of these suggestions can help you identify between real and fraudulent emails.
Tip 1
Pay attention to the sender’s name.
In email addresses, the name comes before the “@” symbol.
Scammers frequently change email addresses to avoid being detected by large Internet Service Providers, thus they may use a randomly created name and continue to modify it.
If the name contains a random string like “7b9fv51ot6r43,” you can be quite certain that this email is not legitimate.
Even if the email is from someone you know, that does not guarantee that it is not spam. A scammer could have taken over their account.
Tip 2
Domain Name
Take note of the domain name (the name following the “@” symbol in an email address).
If the email address comes from a website that is unrelated to the organization claiming to be the sender, you’ve discovered a scam!
Scammers may sometimes use sophisticated domain names like “InsuranceSecurity.info” and a subdomain like “Iconinsurance” to generate an email address like”contact@iconinsurance.insurancesecurity.info”
Please be aware that this domain does not belong to Iconinsurance; it
belongs to the owner of InsuranceSecurity.info (who might be anyone!).
Official emails from huge firms like Iconinsurance will never come from publicly free-to-use email domains like “hotmail.com” or “gmail.com,” so don’t fall victim to phishing attacks using these
names.
Tip3
Check spelling and grammar.
Spammers frequently make spelling and punctuation mistakes in their emails, which is appalling.
If you get an email from a business, such as your bank, that contains these flaws, it is not genuine.
Tip4
Generic Greetings
Look out for generic pleasantries like “Dear Valued Customer”.
When you apply for online services, you normally offer your first name, so they should already know it and be able to include it in their email to you.
If your name is not given, the scammer most likely does not know anything about you.
Tip5
Urgency
Professional businesses, such as your bank, will not expect you to take any action in a very short period of time.
If an email asks you to complete a task within X hours, it is usually spam.
Tip6
Do not click links.
If an organization, such as your bank, wants you to log in to your account to do a task, be wary of links that appear to take you to their log in page.
As an alternative, access the website as usual in your browser and proceed from there.
Tip7
Personal Information
Pay attention when you receive requests for personal information.
Organizations like eBay, Amazon, PayPal, and your bank will never ask you for personal information at random, especially over email.
What happens when you’ve detected an email as spam?
Delete it.
DO NOT respond to it or supply any information to the scammer.
One of the roles of a virtual Assistant is Email Management.
A virtual assistant will detect scam mails, Spam mails and filter them out.
This helps reduced the amount of time spent going thru mails.
I hope these few tips will help you never to fall prey to scammers.