How You Can Spot Email Scams
Most of us get spam trying to sell us things, most commonly prescriptions, cheap mortgage rates, online gambling and other, more "adult" topics. Most of us just delete them or hit the "spam" button and move on. There are some other types of spam that are a little more serious, however.
One of the most common ones has been around for many years - the Nigerian bank scam. The person sending the email pretends to be the wife, brother, lawyer, banker or have some other relationship with some kind of government official in Nigeria. They tell the sad story of money that was deposited in a bank account but can't be accessed because the person has died. They offer to give you a share of the wealth in return for accepting a transfer of the money to your bank account. The catch is, you need to give them your bank account information and transfer several thousand dollars to them first for "expenses". Naturally, you never see any of the money that is promised after sending the expense funds. It sounds obvious, but people fall for this scam year after year, even though it has been going on for so long.
Other scams offer investments with huge paybacks. They always claim to be risk-free naturally, but once you've sent them your money it's highly unlikely you'll ever see any of it again, let alone profit. A similar scam involves credit cards for people with poor credit ratings. You send them a security deposit and processing charge and they send you a credit card. Unfortunately, once they have your fees you'll never hear from them again.
Remember these offers are worse than even ordinary spam. Legitimate businesses do not promote their products by spamming. They e-mail selected groups, generally those who have purchased from them before or voluntarily offered an e-mail address. Other offers should usually be ignored. Simply hit your delete button. However, even highlighting the e-mail in order to delete it can signal a spammer that you received one.
How To Sidestep These Scams
First, never reply to spam. This just tells the spammer that your email is in fact valid and the amount of spam you'll receive will quickly multiply. Some spam will even include a link at the bottom for removing yourself from their list. If it's a true spam email, don't use this - it just confirms your email address as well. If you did sign up to receive the email however, this is a legitimate way of removing yourself from future mailings.
Never send any private information like credit card numbers or username & passwords by email. Legitimate companies like Paypal or your bank will never ask for these things directly through email.
What is spam to one person may be a welcomed advertisement to another, so it isn't a simple thing to stop. But in general, if you don't recognize the person sending you the message, it's probably not someone you wanted to hear from. After all, how many former dictators can there really be in Nigeria?
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