How To Avoid Falling For E-mail Scams
By Glenn Stok
In this article I’ll explain “How To Be 100% Safe From Scammers” and “Why The Scammers Succeed.”
I'll conclude with “What You Can Do” in case you want to put some extra effort into helping others avoid this too.
I often get into discussions with friends about online bill paying and doing other financial tasks online.
I no longer have my paper bills sent to me in the mail. I get them via email and I pay my bills online. People argue with me, saying it's much too dangerous.
Well, I beg to differ. How many times have criminals stolen paper bills and bank statements from the garbage, finding social security numbers and account numbers that can be used to steal someone’s identity? Or to use the information to buy products under someone else’s name?
Credit card numbers are even stolen at checkout counters in stores where the thief simply looks over the cardholder's shoulder and quickly jots down the number while they are holding the card waiting to pay.
This happens in the real world. But in cyber space we can protect ourselves a lot easier. The problem is that people don’t know how.
Too many people get fooled into giving away their user ID and password by a method called phishing. They receive an email stating that their account was compromised and that they should log in and change their password immediately. They click on the link in the email and go to their bank's site or broker's site, whatever it may be. The site looks familiar and they think they are really there. But it's a fake site, a spoof of the real thing.
In a hurry to change their password they no longer are thinking clearly. They enter their user ID and password to log in. Being in panic mode, they don’t even take the time to first check things out. They just quickly change their password.
If they had check things out the might find that some things just don’t seem right. A spoof site copies a lot but may have missed a few things. Anyway, it's too late. They just gave their logon information to the criminal by logging in.
Any login would have worked on the spoof site. But the hacker is anticipating that people will enter their true login information. Then they use this to log into the real site and transfer all their money to an account of their own.
How To Be 100% Safe From Scammers
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You can be 100% safe if you follow the rules of safety. Never log into an account via a link from an email. Always go directly to the site by entering the URL yourself. Or better yet, save it in your bookmarks and click to it from there. Not from an email.
In addition, if another website talks about, say your bank, for instance, and they have a link to it. Don’t follow that link. Again, just go direct or via your own bookmark that you have saved on your own computer.
The people who fall for these scams are not stupid. They just have not educated themselves with the proper safety methods in cyber space. And they don't understand how hackers work. This is somewhat computer illiterate. But there is no excuse for that. There are scammers in the real world too and there always have been.
In cyber space or in the real world, if you allow yourself to fall for scams you can lose your hard-earned money for being hasty. It's easy to check things out by going to a site with a direct method rather than trusting a link from an unknown source.
It's better to use your intelligence to recognize when things don't seem right. And use your due diligence to check it out yourself, without panicking and without following dangerous links.
Why The Scammers Succeed
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If everyone would just stop responding to these email scams, our inboxes wouldn’t be so cluttered with this garbage. The scammers would give up. They succeed because there are so many people who fall for it.
I am really surprised that so many people are always falling for Internet scams. Without giving it a second thought they fall for them and give away their logon info by trying to log into a phishing site.
It's so easy to avoid the problem... if not sure, just log in by using your own bookmark or type the known URL and not follow a link from those emails. It’s as simple as that!
What You Can Do
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I sometimes get legitimate emails from my bank (a well known one) with links in the email to log in. I report this to them, explaining how they are inadvertently teaching their customers to log in by clicking on links in emails.
Someday one of them will be scammed into giving their account information to a hacker of a phishing site.
If you get an email like that from your bank or financial institution, give them hell. Tell this they are creating a security breach. If enough of us show then that we are smarter than they are, they may get the message.
If you have kids using computers, educate them about the proper use of computers in order to maintain safety and security. Teach yourself and pass it on to your kids.
It's also important to keep abreast of the latest scams. The FBI has a useful website where they list all the scams that are sent via email. See the link for E-mail Scams & Warnings in the gray box above.
Now that you know, you'll be stronger for it and no hacker is going to get the better of you or your family.
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Reader Comments
Thanks Rebecca. How true.
Great hub. Very important information to know. Voted up and useful.
Really good hub, its all too easy to get pulled into a scam these days. Thanks for sharing!
A good phish I've seen a couple of times in the past month is for PayPal info. It looks so genuine and authoritative. The most obvious hint, though, is that it comes from the domain @e.paypal... Don't you think Paypal is prominent enough to own a domain without that extraneous "e"? I've forwarded it a couple of times to the appropriate address listed on the genuine paypal.com website.
Voted up, interesting & useful.(A few typo's. No big deal)
Hey Glen
Good points here. All I can add is that there are at least a dozen Nigerians that owe me about 10 million each. I'm rich! Ha,ha,ha.
It's a shame that there are still people falling for these many scams
Up and Useful
Lee
Howard S., That's a very important point. People need to also look at the URL and learn to understand incorrect and phony addresses. This has to do with having some computer literacy.
Leesleez, thanks for bringing those typos to my attention. I just corrected them. And thanks for the vote up as well.
chefsref, Yes it is a shame people fall for things that are too good to be true.
Thanks to all of you and everyone else for reading and for your comments.
Glen, if it's typos yer lookin fer, your last (?) article had two not-so-minor ones in about the third paragraph. One word had an errant space in the middle of it and another should have been spelled [i]knew.[i/] It was good, as most of yours are.
Howard, Yep, I found them and corrected them. Thanks for the heads-up. Much appreciated.
I also got many email scams, it looks annoying. But before it harm my computer or contain many viruses, so I delete it as soon as possible. Thanks for share this information. We must be careful and stay alert with kind of email scams. Take care!
Glen, this is an informative and useful hub. With the economic crisis nowadays and the holiday is coming soon, we will expect more scam and identity thief to happen. The FBI link and your tips are important things to bear in mind ALWAYS. Just want to add two things – first, do not open suspicious e-mails coming from IRS, FBI or other government agencies asking for your information. These agencies will not send you messages through e-mail. It is obviously a scam. Second, it is also wise to monitor every credit cards, bank accounts or loans we have. In this way, we will be able to notice any discrepancies or suspicious transactions and immediately report it to the concerned bank / financial institution for further actions. Overall, it’s good that you published this hub to inform and remind us to be more careful. Rated up!
prasetio30, It's good you recognize these things. Thank you for reading my hub.
Tina V., That is most helpful. Thanks for those additional things that everyone should watch out for. Good to see you around. And thanks for the vote up.
These days some emails with blank "Re:" header are bypassing spam filters. Such type of mails have malicious links. Gmail and Hotmail allows us to set such emails as spam. I always find and mark such mails as spam. Good hub Glenn.
skyfire, That's a good idea. I myself have my filter set to remove anything that has no subject. Thanks for stopping by.
Amazing Hub. Can you please give me a few more details about phishing? I often get such mails
gabby0506, If you want to know more about phishing, click the "phishing" tag on my hub. That will bring you to a list of other Hubs on the subject.
It was very interesting and helpful. Thank you.
Hello, hello, Glad you found it helpful. Always good to see you around.
Voted up and useful. These scam artists have discovered new ways to scamming people out of their money. Fortunately I always know when I'm being scammed through an email and when I'm not; however, older folks and younger immature folks might not see the difference. It's scary that people out there are so greedy in that they'd do these things to strangers over the internet.
Kitty, Thanks for your thoughts on this. Yes it is sad that mostly young people who are not yet educated about computer literacy are the ones who these people pray on the most. They know they can get them to fall for it. We need to educate more computer users to recognize the difference. Thanks for stopping by and for the vote up.
I pray they will prey less on those less vigilant than we are.
Thanks for the great information. I only wish that I had this information back in high school when I caused my Dad's computer to crash opening up one of these emails. Since then, I've never logged into sites through emails. No more problems.
Voted up and useful.
Joe, yes that will help you avoid any further problems. Thanks for the vote up.
You always wonder how people can fall for these email scams until it happens to you LOL. These scammers are getting more and more advanced by the day. You can never be too cautious.
Valuable advice.
I get emails all the time from "Bank of America," "FED EX," "Paypal," and a couple of others. I know these are Scammmers trying to steal my information.
I Always type in the company name that I do business with, and never click these links in my emails. Great that you posted this Glenn.
As long as you are careful about what's out there, the Internet is no more dangerous than anything else.
the toughies are the emails where you review the reply to address and it is the companies. I just keep personal info to a minimum.
Thank you everyone for your comments. All six of you in the last two days had very meaningful and important remarks.
Great Advice
You make some good points and suggestions, Glen. The Internet really is no more dangerous than life in the real (as opposed to virtual) world. People get into a lot of trouble in the real world too -- because they didn't take simple precautions and were too trusting, or careless. A person need not be paranoid, but they do need to be diligent in keeping themselves and their personal information safe.
I voted you up and 'useful.'
Au fait, I couldn't say it any better myself. Thanks for the comment and for the vote up.
This is pretty helpful and informative for the people that aren't aware of such threats. Keep up the great hubs.
I get e-mails claiming to be from UPS, FedEx, various banks, etc., all the time, but I just ignore them. A lot of times you can tell they're bogus due to the writers' lack of English language skills. Haha.
this is a very useful hub I vote you up. your information is helpful. Keep up the good work.
Paula, Glad my Hub helped. Thanks for the vote up.
very useful information~
Good info Glenn. There is alot of common sense involved of course,learning not to panick and doing something in haste, but your hub still wants me to to rush home and show this to my teenage daughter, who has just opened her own bank account. I have pointed out a few things to her that she should be aware of, but it's always good coming from someone else and being able to read it for herself. I will also get her to follow a few of your tags, for extra info.
inthenickoftime77, I know what you mean. I have a friend with a teenage daughter and she allows viruses to get into her Dad's computer because she has no idea how to recognize these scams. I'm glad my Hub is useful to you. Thanks for referring it to your daughter. Hopefully she will know how to protect herself from harm.
Just a quick note to say "Good one!" The average user has no idea about the speed in which the internet is growing. Scammers are smarter and craftier than ever before. Articles like this educate, so thanks for the submission!
I have actually made a presentation on this subject! It was really fun to read your article! The only tip I'm teaching to others about fishing is to ALWAYS LOOK AT THE URL. No matter what log-in required site your on. Always just click the toolbar and check if the URL is the same as the site you were meant to go to
CondoLux Rentals - You're welcome. And thanks for your kind words.
jonte2020 - Yes indeed. We need to educate people to look at the URL. In addition, they need to understand that hovering over the URL at looking at the bottom of the screen is not sufficient. That can be changed by the hacker. But once you go to a site, the URL in the URL field will show the true location. But best not to go there via a link, since that can capture a virus.
One other thing to watch for.
We're all lazy and tend to use passwords in multiple accounts, instead of having a different password for every account. (NEVER use the same password for any account having access to your money as you do for social media accounts). Many sites, like Facebook, are infamously poorly protected against hackers, so hackers can break in and get your email and password from those insecure accounts, then break into and take over your email account, locking you out.
For example, I stupidly had the same password for my Facebook and GMail accounts. I actually *deleted* the Facebook account, supposedly, but in fact, Facebook simply deactivated it, leaving it lying around for an enterprising Nigerian hacker to rummage in.
So, six months after a major Nigerian hacker report on email/passwords stolen from Facebook, I found my Gmail account's password had been changed, locking me out. The hacker had taken over my account and sent an email in MY name saying I was in financial straits on a business trip, had lost my wallet and desperately needed a loan of a couple thousand bucks to get home.
Two of my friends believed it was me and nearly fell for it before I managed to get control of my email account back.
That's the only time I've been hacked, and I've been on the internet (or its predecessors) since 1989.
Moral of the story: if you receive a fishy-sounding email from a friend, even if it's the right email address, it's possible they've been hacked. Find some way to confirm it's really them before replying, or you'll give the hacker YOUR email address.
Thanks Glenn, great hub, with very useful information to know when using the Internet. I voted you up.
Greekgeek - That is a very important addition. Thanks for adding that. Everyone needs to understand why they should use a different password on every website for their own safety. And the other point you mentioned is just as important... never trust a request to click a link even if it comes from a trusted friend.
F-Menchise - Thanks for the vote up.
That's true, folks made this common mistake, atleast you should check the url in the address bar.
Thank you for this information! I just recently almost got scammed with a Mystery Shopper scam that is currently out there. I'm going to the authorities with it as I didn't fall for it, but I very well could have if I didn't think it was too good to be true. That's one that we always need to remember, if it seems to good then it probably is to good to be true. I know, we've heard that since we were kids but still too true. Great article!
Earn4free - Checking the URL is an easy thing to do and there's no excuse for missing that. You are so right.
Michelle - You are very bright and alert. I'm glad you knew better than to fall for something too good to be true. My all means you should report that scam. Thanks for letting our readers know about that one.
Great job here. It's so true, the real world is just as dangerous. But it's great to know these tips to keep crime from happening online.
Thanks Glenn for spreading the awareness about this. I was aware of the emails but never knew that links from other sites could also be a part of the scam. Great article.
Great hub you got here Glenn. There are lots of advantages for using online to pay bills as well not to mention it is easier and faster. You are also helping save the trees! Great job!
I really appreciate your hub and feel it is important for everyone to read this mail so that they can be saved from email scam.
It is so true that danger is avoided if one is aware of it. Thanks for sharing..
I don't even open 95 percent of the emails that come to my inbox. It is so cluttered with junk and I've been gotten through and email virus before.
I participated in a fake 'phishing' course in uni once. A guy showed us real time how easy it was to obtain usernames and passwords from people by phone. Just by pretending he was the 'ICT-guy' and system administrator of the organization people worked for. Most people are just too naive.
Excellent hub and spot on! Even though it does not happen as often now, I still have to remind a few people in my life never to open an email from someone they don't know, or expecting a message from. Today's world is full of the easy con, so to speak. Your quality research and presentation will help many. Voted up and will save.
RJ
Great advice. Thanks!
I really appreciate the information you have shared here with us all , well i also use email virus scan and blobkers that help blobk spam emails , and i do not open any scam emails that claims to state that i have won some million billion $$ or my account will be blocked if i do not follow that they say
Aceblogs, good for you. You'd be amazed how many people fall for those things. Thanks for your comments.
Hi Glenn,
Great to read another article about how to protect ourselves against email scammers/phishing/spoof emails.
You would think by now that everyone would know better, but if that were true, than all the pond scum out there would not still be sending out phishing/spoof emails. I get these on a constant basis, from Fedex spoof/phishing emails to Paypal spoof/phishing emails.
It is a very sad situation indeed.
Voted up and useful.
sharewhatuknow ~ I get those spoof emails too, almost every day. I just ignore them. I am also surprised that so many people fall for them and give away their logon info by trying to log into a phishing site.
Thanks for your insightful comment and for the vote.
Rebecca E. 9 months ago
As always this is awesome. It takes just a fwe minutes to protect onesself. In fact teh same holds true with teh real world as well, the more you know teh better you can protect yourself.