It never surprises me how many scam emails I receive on a daily basis in my inbox. In this article, I’m going to show you a couple of emails that appear to be legitimate, even though they aren’t. I will also be offering some tips that you can use to avoid being scammed out of your hard-earned money.
In your lifetime, it is almost guaranteed that someone will attempt to scam you at least once, if not more. In the 1990’s, the scammers were in their infancy and it was relatively easy to detect what was considered a scam and what was not. However, in today’s technological era, it’s getting harder and harder to not fall into the trap of becoming a victim.
There have already been many topics written concerning email scams, but I’m going to talk about some actual scam emails I’ve been receiving. I’ll also be explaining some tips you can use to avoid being scammed. We shall begin with the most common of scams – the lottery scam.
The Lottery Scam
One of the most common email scams is the lottery scam. Basically, you get an email saying you’ve won millions of dollars, preferably from a lottery you did not take part in, and that all you need to do to claim your earnings is to either send a check to a specific address, click on a PayPal link, or send personal information (possibly including bank account information).
It’s easy to determine whether or not the email is a scam. If you need to send anyone any amount of money to claim your winnings, it’s definitely a scam. If you have an HTML email provider, and the email contains a link to PayPal, you can often look at the part and see where exactly the PayPal link is going to direct you. Often, the PayPal link will seem genuine, but the part will say otherwise, linking you to a specific person’s PayPal account, where they will get any money you send. Also, if you need to provide personal information, such as Social Insurance Number or Credit Card Number, then the email is a definite fake.
The Inheritance Scam
A similar situation to the lottery scam, but this time you’ll receive an email explaining that a rich long-distance relative or a person from another country has passed away (or has been discovered to have been related to you), and has written in their will that you will receive a portion of their earnings. Again, they’ll ask for a deposit or for personal information before they send out your hypothetical earnings.
The Business Scam
In this scenario, you’ll receive an email asking you to partner up with another person for a work-at-home business opportunity. The person will attempt to convince you of the full-proof scam by offering fake details stating that the business will earn both of you hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. Of course, all of this will not be possible without an initial deposit, usually something to the extent of a few hundred dollars. Make sure you don’t fall for this one.
The Friend Impersonation Scam
This is a relatively new scam that popped up in 2008. Basically, you get sent an email from a close friend or relative in need of money. For example, the email might say that your friend got into a car accident while on vacation and needs money to pay for the hospital bills. The letter seems legitimate in all senses of the word, with even the full name of your friend listed as the “From” sender. If the person in question is a close friend, your first inclination might be to send the money to help them. However, it’s best to speak to them in person before taking any action you might regret.
The Work-At-Home Scam
Image By Author
Finally, the last major scam I’m going to talk about is with regards to being offered a way to make tons of cash from your own home. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of legitimate ways to make money at home. For instance, survey sites such as Opinion Outpost and GlobalTestMarket offer real money for completing surveys. And then there are writing sites such as Triond and Helium.
But there are many more websites on the internet claiming to offer you thousands of dollars for a few hours of work. For instance, in the screenshot, you can see that I replied to a Kijiji job listing, claiming to offer me $20.00 an hour for part-time work. I called the number, masking my own phone number in the process. What I ended up getting was an automated voice response that for 15 minutes explained how I needed to pay $3,500 on this website to sign up for the program. And then I got a bunch of other automated voice responses from people claiming that they’ve already made thousands upon thousands of dollars.
I’m not an idiot. After 15 minutes of listening to this nonsense, I closed the phone. It was probably a pyramid scheme or some other mass marketing scam.
Suffice it to say, even on Craigslist and Kijiji will you find scams such as this one. Always be careful and never pay any of your hard-earned money to these obvious scammers.
Closing Remarks
What I’ve shown you today are only a couple of the scams you will encounter in your lifetime. They could be on Craigslist, Kijiji, on another work-at-home website, or in your email inbox. Wherever you find them, do not fall victim to their “too good to be true” scenarios. Never shell out any cash. Never sign up for any program, even if all they need is your Credit Card or Social Insurance number.
If you have a PayPal account and you receive an email notification saying your account will be suspended unless you visit a certain link and re-enter all of your personal information, ignore it, because it’s a scam.
Image via Wikipedia
To conclude this article, I will offer you some valuable tips on recognizing email scams:
· Check the email address of the sender. If the address has a weird name, it’s most likely a scam.
· Check the content of the email. If there are plenty of spelling and/or grammar errors, it’s most likely a scam.
· Check what the email is about. If you’ve supposedly won a lottery, you shouldn’t need to pay any money or give any personal information to claim your funds.
· If the email claims to be from a friend, call him and make sure he’s the one who sent it.
· If the email claims to be from PayPal, go to the PayPal website and ask them if they sent it.
· If you’re selling an item on Craigslist or Kijiji and you’re contacted by someone from Nigeria saying they’ll offer you more money than your sale price for the item, then it’s a scam.
And that’s pretty much it. If you’re on the alert, you won’t fall victim to the evil grasp of the scam artists. Oh, and remember one more thing. Even if the email seems legitimate in every sense of the word, and you’re not sure whether or not to believe it, simply ignore it. If the email was really important, the sender will contact you again within a day or two. If he doesn’t, or he contacts you in 2 weeks or in the following month, chances are it’s a scam. Even phone scams are prevalent in today’s society.
Or if push comes to shove and you can’t decide for yourself whether or not an email is a scam, simply ask someone knowledgeable to check it out for you. The more we work together to distinguish the difference between what’s a scam and what isn’t, the better off we’ll be as a society, and the angrier the marketing companies will get. After all, when the scammers are angry, us people are happy.
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March 14th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Thanks for this post – it’s nice to know people are looking out for those who could potentially fall for these scam artists. I’m often afraid to even click these emails open – but if I’m curious here’s what I do:
Whenever I get an email coming into my outlook that I think could be a scam I highlight the email and click on “Ctrl” “C” (to copy, because using a right click copy or the file copy doesn’t work). Then I open a folder and use “Ctrl” “V” to paste the email in there. I open it with notpad (any text editor will do) and examine the contents looking for URLs, tracking code or anything potentially malevolent. Then I close the text editor and delete the email using “ctrl” “Delete” to bypass the recycle bin, and then I delete it from my Outlook without ever having opened it up so no sophisticated tracking code can show that my email address is “live”.
Sometimes I’ll open them up though, just to see if there’s anything that could be fun to play with. I often consider writing them back and then stringing them along for as long as possible to waste their time – but don’t want to give them the satisfaction of even getting my header information.
In some cases I’ll go to http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx and look up the email provider’s Network, and then email the abuse@the-network-emailproviders-domain.com a copy of the scam, so they can take action against the sender if possible.
March 14th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Thanks for these useful scam-avoidance tips! I usually don’t open any email that’s from an unrecognised address. So many interesting and potentially worthwhile sites require you to register with an email address that I’ve opened a special email account just for that so that I never have to give out my personal or business addresses to those who might not be quite so careful with my info as I’d like. By doing this I’ve kept my personal account pretty clean.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:47 am
great post… this is very important! thanks for sharing…
July 8th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I get so many scams it outragous!