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6 tips for dealing with suspicious emails

Feb 4, 2008 Technology

If you have been sending and receiving emails for more than a day or two, you no doubt receive more than your fair share of suspicious email messages. And unfortunately, the problem is most likely going to get a lot worse before it starts getting any better.
 
By now you have probably been clued-in to the fact that in all likelihood you don’t really have a rich uncle in Nigeria who has passed on and left you millions of dollars or that your bank needs for you to “log in and update your account information”, but the scammers are always coming up with new ways to separate you from your hard-earned money and/or steal your identity.
 
If you’re concerned about protecting yourself from suspicious emails (and you should be), here are a few tips that just might help you avoid a whole heap of trouble:
 
1 – Do everything you can to prevent the bad guys from getting their virtual hands on your “real” email address in the first place by using a “throwaway” email address (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) when signing up for things like newsletters and such. Even if you provide your email address to a reputable company, there is always a chance that it will find its way onto a spam email list, and once it on there you’ll NEVER get it off.
 
2 – Turn on the email filters in your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. By and large those filters do a pretty fair job at weeding out most spam and phishing attempts.
 
3 – NEVER open an email with an attachment unless you know for certain that it really came from a person or company you trust. And don’t assume that it really came from the person or company listed in the FROM line because that is easily faked (and it almost always is if the email is from a bad guy).
 
For example, if you know for a fact that Aunt Rose is going to be sending you a Word document or a photo of her new grandchild, you can probably open it without worrying too much about it. But if it arrives out of the blue and Aunt Rose rarely, if ever sends attachments with her emails, you would be wise to call her up or send her an email asking if it really came from her BEFORE you open it up.
 
4 – Emails from banks, PayPal, or other financial institutions asking you to click a link and log in to “verify your account” or change your password are virtually ALWAYS fake. These organizations will either call you on the phone, send a letter through the mail, and/or put a notice on your account where you’ll see it when you log in if they truly need for you to take some action.

ALWAYS log in to your account by visiting the URL for the institution’s website directly and clicking the login link on the home page. Also make sure that the login page is a “secure” page by looking for the tell-tale https: in the URL instead of the usual http: as well as the little “lock” symbol that indicates you are on a secure page.
 
5 – Along the same lines as what we discussed in #4, NEVER click a link in an email that will supposedly take you to the login page of ANY website that requires a username and password, even if the supposed sender isn’t a financial institution. Internet crooks have many devious uses for honest people’s email accounts, Ebay accounts and the like, so it is extremely important that you prevent access to them just like you do for your bank account(s). Again, visit the company’s website directly and log in from the home page.
 
6 – If you receive an email that seems legitimate but you just aren’t sure (especially if there are no login links), visit Snopes.com and enter any URL’s, phones numbers, emails addresses, or unique phrases included in the email into the search box. If it’s a hoax, the odds are extremely high that others have already received the same email or some variation of it, and Snopes will let you know whether the email is possibly legitimate or if you should simply delete it and move on.
 
That’s it! Hopefully, these tips will help you avoid falling for one of the numerous email scams that are constantly being circulated around the web. Good luck, and happy surfing!