Landmines in your Inbox: Learning to Identify Spam

Introduction 

Nowadays, it’s more difficult than ever to determine what’s real. Every single day, your inbox is crammed with ads, important documents and alerts, and potentially dangerous spam. Then you spend part of your day sorting through it all, trying not to miss important information while avoiding the landmines hidden throughout it.  

It can be a frustrating experience. Most people know of the Nigerian prince scam, but there are plenty more. Whether they’re trying to get you to click a link, provide them with sensitive information, download an attachment, or send them money, they’re a security concern you need to be aware of.  

While the FTC and FBI have been making consistent attempts to quell the number of cyber scams being committed, it can be a difficult process. Often, these crimes are committed abroad, meaning they don’t have local jurisdiction and must rely on cooperation with another country. This entire process can be time-consuming and expensive. Even when they can shut down and prosecute the perpetrators, they often aren’t able to recover what the victims have lost. This means prevention is your best option when it comes to dealing with these scammers.  

Common Types of Spam Emails 

Fake invoice – These emails include fake invoices with rather large price tags. The goal is to scare you into opening the invoice, which most likely has malicious code embedded inside it. It’s recommended to ignore it if the invoice is from a stranger, and if it’s from someone you know, then you can contact them directly (not through replying to this message) and confirm if this email was sent by them.  

Failed to deliver a package – You may receive a message saying that a delivery service was unable to deliver your package, and you’ll need to pay a fee for them to reattempt delivery. You can safely ignore this message if you haven’t ordered any packages recently or used this delivery service. If you’re unsure, you can check with the mail service directly (do not use any links in the email or reply to them) or check in with the supplier of the item recently ordered and see if they can track it and ask who they shipped it with. 

Netflix Account is suspended – Sometimes, you’ll be alerted that your Netflix account has been suspended due to a lack of payment (Even when you don’t have a Netflix account...). It’s always best to go directly to Netflix’s website and check your account to see if there are any issues with billing.  

Technical Support – You may receive an email about an issue with your Microsoft or Google account and be requested to get in touch with technical support so they can help you with the issue.  They may even say they’ve detected an issue with your device, and they’d like to help you fix it. As always, it’s best to contact them directly. When searching online, you might even see that similar scams have been attempted, and it will help you gain more insight.  

How to Spot Scam Emails 

We’ve only covered a few common kinds of scams, but there are many more, and new kinds of scams are created as time passes. For this reason, it’s better to learn how to spot common scams, rather than try to memorize all the kinds that exist.  

1. Always check who the email is from, and not just the display name. The Display name might be “Netflix Support” but the email address might show “Nedthompson@yahoo.com.” Pay special attention to the domain, the part after the @. You can compare it to previous legitimate emails to ensure it’s actually from Netflix.  

2. Look at who the email is being sent to and addressed to. Just the other day, a friend of mine got an email addressed to him and 999 others.  You can imagine it was a red flag that clearly alerted him to something wrong. It also matters who it’s addressed to. “Dear Customer” or “Dear User” doesn’t instill any confidence in me that this is a company contacting me about an issue that’s personal to my account.  

3. Bad grammar and misspellings are often a sign of an email being illegitimate. Unfortunately, these mistakes might be less common as scammers turn to ChatGPT and other AI services to check their spelling and grammar.  

4. Be wary of any emails that include urgent or threatening language in the subject line. Scammers often attempt to scare you in hopes that you’ll act quickly and not cautiously.  

5. Research the issue if you’re unsure. You can go online and ask if other people received a similar email. These scammers email hundreds of people a day, and you’re most likely not the first one to receive an email like this.  

6. If the email includes a button with a link, carefully copy the link address and post it into a notepad or sticky note. The address might just give you a clue. If the email was from “PayPal”, but the link doesn’t go to their site, then you know something’s wrong. 

   
   

How to Minimize Scam Emails

 

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to fully avoid receiving these kinds of emails, but below we have some tips that will hopefully help you get fewer. 

1. Block and report spam when you spot it. There is usually an option in your mailbox to report mail as spam. Doing this trains your filter to look for similarities in future emails and reduces the reputation of the sender, which means you can help yourself and other users, as they’ll be more likely to go directly to spam.  

2. Be careful who you give your email address to. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, and some services may require your email address to move forward. In cases like this, many people have a separate email address that they use for less credible websites, so if your email address is sold or stolen, all the spam won’t go to your primary address. People also use services such as SimpleLogin, where you can set up email aliases that all get forwarded to your primary account. If an alias is getting too much spam, then you can turn it off.  

   
   

Conclusion 

Whether you’re tech-savvy or a technophobe, hopefully, we’ve helped you feel safe when scrolling through your inbox. Remember, the best way to stay safe is to be cautious! Be sure to comb through suspicious emails following the methods we gave you, and stay supported!