How to tell if an Email is SPAM

byeasyplanning

213 followers

11 years ago

If It Ends Up In Your Spam Folder
You might be reading this thinking “Duh!” But you would be surprised how many people go rummaging through their spam folder like there’s something they need in there.

Look at the Email Address
Legitimate companies send emails through a server based out of their company website (for example, support@microsoft.com). If you see a long string of numbers in front of the @ sign or the name of a free email service before the .com (or any other domain), you need to question the legitimacy of the email in question.

Look at the Content
Keep an eye out for emails that say you need to do something right at that second or within a certain number of hours. Also, be wary of any emails that include links. Most companies tell you what to do, but they never direct you to where to do it with a link. Finally, rampant grammatical and spelling errors within the body of an email are good signs that it’s spam. Spammers don’t care enough about the actual messages they’re sending to take the time to make them make sense.

If It Asks for Personal Information
Most institutions you deal with come right out and say they’re never going to ask for personal information in an email. They don’t need to ask you for your personal information anyway because they usually have it on hand. So, if you get an email that asks you for any personal information, no matter how legitimate it might seem, delete it right away. Personal information is only meant to be entered in secure, encrypted forms, not emails where anyone and everyone can get their hands on your information.

Look at the Greeting
When you receive a genuine email, the sender addresses you directly, using either your first or last name. If you receive an email where they refer to you as a “Valued Customer” or as a member of some company, its spam. Senders of your genuine emails want to get your attention, so they always address you directly. We don’t know about you, but when we read “Dear Valued Customer,” our eyes begin to glaze over and our mouse cursor can’t drag it to the trash fast enough.

Not that most of us didn't know this, but i figure i would put it out there just in case.

-Paula