The Ultimate Guide To Detecting E-Mail Scams

This post is day 1 of the A Week Of Staying Safe series.

The number of e-mail scams out there has grown exponentially over the past few years. Do you remember getting one of those things back in the 90s? They didn’t really pop up too much until the late 90s, and since then not a day goes by when I don’t get at least 4 of them.

What is even more amazing is how many people still fall for the things. It is not only older people that get scammed, but a lot of young people are as well, so it definitely isn’t an age thing. So why is it?

I think it happens for one simple reason - every time someone looks at something they want to believe it is true. Most people are smart enough to tell the difference using little clues, but for whatever reason others can’t tell the difference.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself whenever you receive a questionable e-mails:

Were You Expecting It?

Isn’t it odd to just unexpectedly receive an e-mail in regards to some dead person’s bank account transfer when you don’t know anyone who has recently died? It is even stranger if you get one three days after starting an account.

Who Sent This?!?!?

One funny thing about scammers is they tend to use famous people’s names. I don’t know if they enter the name into some program, or if the program just fetches names from web pages, but either way if you haven’t a clue who sent it or why they sent it then they are most likely a scammer.

Wow, This Person Sucks At Grammar

Horrible grammar = beware. There aren’t many e-mail scams made by people with good grammar. Even worse is when they misspell every other word likez thiszz lolzars.

“Please Don’t Contact My Business Line,” huh?

There’s been a lot of scams circulating lately written by supposed employees of big international banks. One line that most of those e-mails have in common is something along the lines of “Please contact me through my personal e-mail address, not my business one…” Occasionally they might even throw in “This e-mail is in regards to an investigation and I am contacting you outside of that investigation”. Hmm, if they are really contacting you in regards to an investigation then why do they want to chat “outside” of it?

How Did They Get My E-Mail?

If you haven’t given your address to a big international bank, how did they get it? Also, good banks never ever communicate important information via e-mail, they will always use the postal service or telephone.

Huh, What About 9/11?

One of the most common (and dangerous) scams are the “transfer my money to your account then transfer it back to me” schemes. They will generally use legislation passed after 9/11 as an excuse and claim they can’t transfer money over themselves due to the laws.

Umm, do I need to say it? Never ever take money from unknown people if they want it back at a later date. 99% of the time there will be something wrong with the funds and you will be stuck paying the scammer and your bank.

Too Good To Be True?

There is a saying I am sure you’ve heard: “If it’s too good to be true it probably is”. Generally speaking, if something seems absolutely amazing (make fast money overnight, for example) it probably isn’t true. There are some exceptions like the free ipod/computer sites, but generally this rule is true.

Well, that’s it for now. If you follow those instructions and ask those questions hopefully you won’t have any more problems detecting scams.

A Week Of Staying Safe Articles:
Day 1 - The Ultimate Guide To Detecting E-Mail Scams
Day 2 - Huh? Who Sent That? - How To Find Out What Server Really Sent That E-Mail And How To Deal With Spam
Day 3 - Having A Good Host Can Sure Save Your Sanity
Day 4 - Top 3 Ways To Secure MySQL
Day 5 - Avoiding Make Fast Money Affiliate Scams
Day 6 - 17 Ways To Avoid Spyware Forever
Day 7 - Password Rotation

Please subscribe, or else I will cry. Do you really want to make a programmer cry?