How Can You Quickly Determine If The Email You Received Is A Scam?
Posted: 25 January 2020
The number one rule is that if you receive an email offering something that sounds too good to be true, then it is always a scam. If someone you have never had any contact with sends you an unexpected email with any of the following offers, it should always be treated as a scam and ignored:
A - To send you a large sum of money (often millions of dollars) for any reason at all.
B - To start a romantic relationship with you, to fall in love with you, or to start a close friendship with you for business purposes.
C - To start a business relationship with you where they want you to help them to invest a large sum of money that they claim to have and/or they would like you to help recommend some good investment opportunities to them.
D - To conduct a business transaction or to business partner with you in a situation where they are offering to split a percentage of a large sum of so-called money with you in exchange for your help or cooperation in some way. Usually they claim they want you to receive delivery of a large so-called transfer or consignment of money on their behalf.
E - To offer you any kind of guaranteed employment, either as a direct employee, a part-time employee, a work-from-home employee, or as a company representative handling payments remotely.
F - To send you free money, cars, or cell phones related to grants, awards, charity, donations, lucky draws, promotions, Covid-19 aid money, or lottery winnings and either from a corporation, a charity organization, a division of government, a non-profit entity, or a foundation. Or from an individual who claims to have won a lottery already, or a wealthy businessman, a wealthy public figure, or a philanthropist who is offering to give away money to you as charity.
G - To give you a large amount of money in an unsecured loan with a low interest rate.
H - To send you a large sum of money where it involves you acting as the “next of kin” to receive money from a deceased person that they claim has a similar last name or the same last name as you or where there was supposedly no next of kin named at all before the so-called deceased person died.
I - To request your assistance in receiving money from an inheritance involving any form of unclaimed or dormant funds lodged at a bank.
J - To offer to send you a credit card or ATM card preloaded with a large sum of money, often claiming that they are making contact with you from a major bank, a courier, or security company.
K - To offer to send you a bank wire transfer or a payment via Western Union, Money Gram, Ria Money, World Remit, Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, Zoom, Google Pay, Revolut or PayPal.
L - To offer to send you money from a large government entity like The United Nations, The World Bank, The IMF, The WHO, The FBI, The CIA, a central bank, a finance ministry, or any other department of a government.
M - To offer to deliver a large consignment of money to you (either in cash, by bank transfer, or via an ATM card) from a bank, an airport agent, a diplomatic agent, a security company or a courier company like DHL, FedEx, USPS, UPS, etc.
N - To send you money as compensation for anything that they claim is a result of your "past efforts" where you helped them with something in the past.
O - To ask you to act as a recipient or beneficiary for someone who claims to be a widow, orphan, refugee, or claims to be dying and who, in all cases, claims they have a large sum of money that they would like to send to you on their behalf for any reason. Or for you to help them donate money to charity on their behalf.
P - To offer you an opportunity to invest your own money into a lucrative investment that they are offering. Or to offer you their money as a loan for you to use for your own investment purposes.
Q - To ask you to help a military officer (a Colonel, a General, a Sergeant, a Lieutenant, a Major, a Captain, etc) who claims to be stationed overseas (in countries like Afghanistan, Lybia, Iraq, Syria, Russia, Ukraine, etc) and who wants your assistance to move a large sum of money.
R - To tell you that you are due a large sum of money as an award from something to do with scam victims or to award you money that was supposedly confiscated from fraudsters.
S - To offer to open a bank account for you for a fee.
Anyone who contacts you with an unsolicited offer for any of the reasons listed above is lying and attempting to steal money from you. Their usual method is to demand a payment as an upfront fee. This is known as advance fee fraud, which means every email shown on this website is a fraudulent scam. If you send money to a scammer as an upfront fee, you will almost never be able to recover it. Another common factor in these scams is that the money being promised does not exist. It is completely fictitious. The only real money is whatever the scammer convinces you to send.
Scam emails can also take the form of threats. These messages often claim your computer has been hacked or infected with malware or a Trojan virus. The scammer may say they will expose embarrassing videos of you unless you pay them, often demanding payment through Bitcoin within a short deadline. They may also claim that if you refuse to pay, they will release your personal information publicly or even have you arrested by law enforcement. All of these claims are lies. Your computer has not been infected, the scammer has no access to your files, and they have no power to expose you in any way. If you receive one of these threatening emails, do not panic, respond, or send money. These messages are entirely fake and fraudulent. They are often referred to as "Scareware", and the best response is to delete them and ignore the scammer completely.
Below are 20 more useful ways to quickly recognize if a suspicious email is a fraudulent attack. If the email you received shows any of the following signs, it is definitely a scam:
1 - The email addresses you as “Dear Beneficiary”, “Dear Winner”, “Dear Customer”, “Dear Friend”, “Dear Sir/Madam”, “Dear Partner”, “Dear Beloved”, “Dearest One”, “Dear Beloved In The Lord", "Dear Valued Client”, “Attention:”, “Hello My Dear”, “Attn:”, “Dear Esteemed Customer”, etc.
2 - The body of the email letter begins with something like “I crave your indulgence”, “Don’t be offended by my intrusion”, "Series of meetings", “Congratulations”, “Compliment Of The Season”, “Calvary Greetings”, “Compliment Of The Day”, "Compliments Of The Season", “This email may come to you as a surprise”, “This may sound strange and unbelievable”, “Excuse me for intruding into your privacy”, “ARE YOU DEAD OR STILL ALIVE?”, “I am a woman that has seen life”, “I hope I can trust you”, or something of a similar nature.
3 - The body of the email discusses that you are to receive a large amount of money as financial "Compensation" from "Debt Recovery" as "Recovered Funds", as an “Overdue Payment”, or as a "Winner", "Recipient", or “Beneficiary” of a large amount of funds.
4 - The body of the email message is typed using all capital letters.
5 - The sender is using two male first names (that sound like typical Anglo Saxon names) for both their first name and their surname. For example “John Mike”, “Peter George”, "Michael Joe", etc. For female names the scammers often will use a Anglo Saxon female first name together with a male first name as their surname. For example "Margaret Alex", "Jackie Tedd", “Agnes Paul”, etc.
6 - The sender is claiming to be a doctor, engineer, professor, banker, loan officer, government official, or a legal practitioner (barrister, lawyer, attorney, esquire, solicitor) or claims to be working for a large government agency, a bank, or a financial institution, but their own email address is a free webmail email address such as one from Gmail, Hotmail, Live, Yahoo, AOL, GMX, MSN, ProtonMail, Outlook, Yandex, Seznam, Rediff Mail, Zoho Mail, or iCloud Mail for their own email address. These are always scams because real people working in a professional capacity will never be using a free email service like one of the above because they will always have a more legitimate email address associated with their professional organization or occupation.
7 - The sender is using an email address ending in @accountant.com, @lawyer.com, @presidency.com, @fastservice.com, @minister.com, @financier.com, @deliveryman.com, @asia.com, @usa.com, @representative.com, @diplomats.com, @myself.com, @fastservice.com, @europe.com, @engineer.com, @post.com, @cash4u.com, @secretary.com, @consultant.com or something similar. These are all free webmail email addresses provided to anyone for free by https://mail.com
8 - The name of the sender of the email and the name used to sign the email are two different names.
9 - The sender states that they are from one of these eight West African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, Sierra Leone, or Cote d'Ivorie (Ivory Coast).
10 - The sender is asking you for a lot of your personal information and for a scanned copy of your passport, driving license, or other form of personal identification.
11 - The sender is asking you to send them some money via Zelle, Venmo, Xoom, CashApp, Western Union, Money Gram, Ria Money, World Remit, SendWave, Bitcoin, or via some form of gift card payment service like iTunes Gift Card, eBay Gift Card, Amazon Gift Card, MoneyPak Gift Card, Sephora Gift Card, Google Play Gift Card, Steam Wallet Gift Card, Walmart Gift Card, etc.
12 - The sender is asking you to call or text them on a telephone number starting with any of the following country codes: +234 (Nigeria), +233 (Ghana), +229 (Benin), +225 (Ivory Coast), +232 (Sierra Leone), +221 (Senegal), +228 (Togo), +237 (Cameroon), +226 (Burkina Faso) or +27 (South Africa).
13 - The sender is already asking you to contact an associate of theirs with regards to their offer and this occurs within their first or second email to you.
14 - The sender has sent you some legal, banking, financial, business, or other official documents and/or a personal ID card of theirs that looks fake or is questionable.
15 - The sender writes using bad or imperfect English grammar, meanwhile their name is of an ethnic or national origin where the native language is English.
16 - The sender asks you to click on website links and/or for you to log into another website for any reason.
17 - The email you received was sent to your email address using the Bcc box within the header of the email and, thus this indicates that the email was sent out in bulk to many people at the same time and that the email was not sent or intended for you personally.
18- The sender is claiming to be a Sister, Pastor, Priest, Reverend or Reverend Father and is making contact with you in regards to something financial. A person that lives life in a religious capacity will never suddenly contact you about a transaction involving some form of monetary compensation.
19- The sender claims to be looking for romance and is using any of the following Russian sounding names: Olga, Anna, Yulia, Elena, Natalya, Alena, Alina, Karina, Tatyana, Ekaterina, Tetiana, Marina, Polina, Sveta, Irina, Zoya, Yuliana, Svetlana, Lilya, Sofya, Irinchik, Alexsandra, Anya, Alina, Oksana, Nadezhda, Valentina, Nataliia or some other similar sounding variant.
20- Anyone who contacts you using an email address containing any combination of the words "Office File", "Office Dept", "Office Department", "Office Mail", "Office Unit", "Office Email", "Office Payment", "Office Info", "Office Desk", "Customer Care", "Head Office", "Control Office", "Asset Control", "Public Info", "Dept Info", "Payment Center", "Payment File" (or something similar) it is always a scammer.
Final note: Large internet companies, financial institutions, online payment services, credit card companies, and banks will never send you an email claiming your account has been blocked or locked. They will never ask you to provide your login information by email or tell you to click a link to reset your password, unblock your account, or open a new one. That simply does not happen in the real world.
It is very dangerous to respond to unsolicited emails by giving the sender any personal information. This risk also applies to text messages, chat apps, and social media messages, as well as links that direct you to enter personal details. If you receive a suspicious email that includes links or asks you to update your information, do not click on anything unless you are absolutely certain it came from a trusted and safe sender.
In general, emails that ask for personal information, account information, or login details are always phishing attempts and should be deleted without replying. If you treat all unsolicited and suspicious emails this way, you will be much safer.
A - To send you a large sum of money (often millions of dollars) for any reason at all.
B - To start a romantic relationship with you, to fall in love with you, or to start a close friendship with you for business purposes.
C - To start a business relationship with you where they want you to help them to invest a large sum of money that they claim to have and/or they would like you to help recommend some good investment opportunities to them.
D - To conduct a business transaction or to business partner with you in a situation where they are offering to split a percentage of a large sum of so-called money with you in exchange for your help or cooperation in some way. Usually they claim they want you to receive delivery of a large so-called transfer or consignment of money on their behalf.
E - To offer you any kind of guaranteed employment, either as a direct employee, a part-time employee, a work-from-home employee, or as a company representative handling payments remotely.
F - To send you free money, cars, or cell phones related to grants, awards, charity, donations, lucky draws, promotions, Covid-19 aid money, or lottery winnings and either from a corporation, a charity organization, a division of government, a non-profit entity, or a foundation. Or from an individual who claims to have won a lottery already, or a wealthy businessman, a wealthy public figure, or a philanthropist who is offering to give away money to you as charity.
G - To give you a large amount of money in an unsecured loan with a low interest rate.
H - To send you a large sum of money where it involves you acting as the “next of kin” to receive money from a deceased person that they claim has a similar last name or the same last name as you or where there was supposedly no next of kin named at all before the so-called deceased person died.
I - To request your assistance in receiving money from an inheritance involving any form of unclaimed or dormant funds lodged at a bank.
J - To offer to send you a credit card or ATM card preloaded with a large sum of money, often claiming that they are making contact with you from a major bank, a courier, or security company.
K - To offer to send you a bank wire transfer or a payment via Western Union, Money Gram, Ria Money, World Remit, Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, Zoom, Google Pay, Revolut or PayPal.
L - To offer to send you money from a large government entity like The United Nations, The World Bank, The IMF, The WHO, The FBI, The CIA, a central bank, a finance ministry, or any other department of a government.
M - To offer to deliver a large consignment of money to you (either in cash, by bank transfer, or via an ATM card) from a bank, an airport agent, a diplomatic agent, a security company or a courier company like DHL, FedEx, USPS, UPS, etc.
N - To send you money as compensation for anything that they claim is a result of your "past efforts" where you helped them with something in the past.
O - To ask you to act as a recipient or beneficiary for someone who claims to be a widow, orphan, refugee, or claims to be dying and who, in all cases, claims they have a large sum of money that they would like to send to you on their behalf for any reason. Or for you to help them donate money to charity on their behalf.
P - To offer you an opportunity to invest your own money into a lucrative investment that they are offering. Or to offer you their money as a loan for you to use for your own investment purposes.
Q - To ask you to help a military officer (a Colonel, a General, a Sergeant, a Lieutenant, a Major, a Captain, etc) who claims to be stationed overseas (in countries like Afghanistan, Lybia, Iraq, Syria, Russia, Ukraine, etc) and who wants your assistance to move a large sum of money.
R - To tell you that you are due a large sum of money as an award from something to do with scam victims or to award you money that was supposedly confiscated from fraudsters.
S - To offer to open a bank account for you for a fee.
Anyone who contacts you with an unsolicited offer for any of the reasons listed above is lying and attempting to steal money from you. Their usual method is to demand a payment as an upfront fee. This is known as advance fee fraud, which means every email shown on this website is a fraudulent scam. If you send money to a scammer as an upfront fee, you will almost never be able to recover it. Another common factor in these scams is that the money being promised does not exist. It is completely fictitious. The only real money is whatever the scammer convinces you to send.
Scam emails can also take the form of threats. These messages often claim your computer has been hacked or infected with malware or a Trojan virus. The scammer may say they will expose embarrassing videos of you unless you pay them, often demanding payment through Bitcoin within a short deadline. They may also claim that if you refuse to pay, they will release your personal information publicly or even have you arrested by law enforcement. All of these claims are lies. Your computer has not been infected, the scammer has no access to your files, and they have no power to expose you in any way. If you receive one of these threatening emails, do not panic, respond, or send money. These messages are entirely fake and fraudulent. They are often referred to as "Scareware", and the best response is to delete them and ignore the scammer completely.
Below are 20 more useful ways to quickly recognize if a suspicious email is a fraudulent attack. If the email you received shows any of the following signs, it is definitely a scam:
1 - The email addresses you as “Dear Beneficiary”, “Dear Winner”, “Dear Customer”, “Dear Friend”, “Dear Sir/Madam”, “Dear Partner”, “Dear Beloved”, “Dearest One”, “Dear Beloved In The Lord", "Dear Valued Client”, “Attention:”, “Hello My Dear”, “Attn:”, “Dear Esteemed Customer”, etc.
2 - The body of the email letter begins with something like “I crave your indulgence”, “Don’t be offended by my intrusion”, "Series of meetings", “Congratulations”, “Compliment Of The Season”, “Calvary Greetings”, “Compliment Of The Day”, "Compliments Of The Season", “This email may come to you as a surprise”, “This may sound strange and unbelievable”, “Excuse me for intruding into your privacy”, “ARE YOU DEAD OR STILL ALIVE?”, “I am a woman that has seen life”, “I hope I can trust you”, or something of a similar nature.
3 - The body of the email discusses that you are to receive a large amount of money as financial "Compensation" from "Debt Recovery" as "Recovered Funds", as an “Overdue Payment”, or as a "Winner", "Recipient", or “Beneficiary” of a large amount of funds.
4 - The body of the email message is typed using all capital letters.
5 - The sender is using two male first names (that sound like typical Anglo Saxon names) for both their first name and their surname. For example “John Mike”, “Peter George”, "Michael Joe", etc. For female names the scammers often will use a Anglo Saxon female first name together with a male first name as their surname. For example "Margaret Alex", "Jackie Tedd", “Agnes Paul”, etc.
6 - The sender is claiming to be a doctor, engineer, professor, banker, loan officer, government official, or a legal practitioner (barrister, lawyer, attorney, esquire, solicitor) or claims to be working for a large government agency, a bank, or a financial institution, but their own email address is a free webmail email address such as one from Gmail, Hotmail, Live, Yahoo, AOL, GMX, MSN, ProtonMail, Outlook, Yandex, Seznam, Rediff Mail, Zoho Mail, or iCloud Mail for their own email address. These are always scams because real people working in a professional capacity will never be using a free email service like one of the above because they will always have a more legitimate email address associated with their professional organization or occupation.
7 - The sender is using an email address ending in @accountant.com, @lawyer.com, @presidency.com, @fastservice.com, @minister.com, @financier.com, @deliveryman.com, @asia.com, @usa.com, @representative.com, @diplomats.com, @myself.com, @fastservice.com, @europe.com, @engineer.com, @post.com, @cash4u.com, @secretary.com, @consultant.com or something similar. These are all free webmail email addresses provided to anyone for free by https://mail.com
8 - The name of the sender of the email and the name used to sign the email are two different names.
9 - The sender states that they are from one of these eight West African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, Sierra Leone, or Cote d'Ivorie (Ivory Coast).
10 - The sender is asking you for a lot of your personal information and for a scanned copy of your passport, driving license, or other form of personal identification.
11 - The sender is asking you to send them some money via Zelle, Venmo, Xoom, CashApp, Western Union, Money Gram, Ria Money, World Remit, SendWave, Bitcoin, or via some form of gift card payment service like iTunes Gift Card, eBay Gift Card, Amazon Gift Card, MoneyPak Gift Card, Sephora Gift Card, Google Play Gift Card, Steam Wallet Gift Card, Walmart Gift Card, etc.
12 - The sender is asking you to call or text them on a telephone number starting with any of the following country codes: +234 (Nigeria), +233 (Ghana), +229 (Benin), +225 (Ivory Coast), +232 (Sierra Leone), +221 (Senegal), +228 (Togo), +237 (Cameroon), +226 (Burkina Faso) or +27 (South Africa).
13 - The sender is already asking you to contact an associate of theirs with regards to their offer and this occurs within their first or second email to you.
14 - The sender has sent you some legal, banking, financial, business, or other official documents and/or a personal ID card of theirs that looks fake or is questionable.
15 - The sender writes using bad or imperfect English grammar, meanwhile their name is of an ethnic or national origin where the native language is English.
16 - The sender asks you to click on website links and/or for you to log into another website for any reason.
17 - The email you received was sent to your email address using the Bcc box within the header of the email and, thus this indicates that the email was sent out in bulk to many people at the same time and that the email was not sent or intended for you personally.
18- The sender is claiming to be a Sister, Pastor, Priest, Reverend or Reverend Father and is making contact with you in regards to something financial. A person that lives life in a religious capacity will never suddenly contact you about a transaction involving some form of monetary compensation.
19- The sender claims to be looking for romance and is using any of the following Russian sounding names: Olga, Anna, Yulia, Elena, Natalya, Alena, Alina, Karina, Tatyana, Ekaterina, Tetiana, Marina, Polina, Sveta, Irina, Zoya, Yuliana, Svetlana, Lilya, Sofya, Irinchik, Alexsandra, Anya, Alina, Oksana, Nadezhda, Valentina, Nataliia or some other similar sounding variant.
20- Anyone who contacts you using an email address containing any combination of the words "Office File", "Office Dept", "Office Department", "Office Mail", "Office Unit", "Office Email", "Office Payment", "Office Info", "Office Desk", "Customer Care", "Head Office", "Control Office", "Asset Control", "Public Info", "Dept Info", "Payment Center", "Payment File" (or something similar) it is always a scammer.
Final note: Large internet companies, financial institutions, online payment services, credit card companies, and banks will never send you an email claiming your account has been blocked or locked. They will never ask you to provide your login information by email or tell you to click a link to reset your password, unblock your account, or open a new one. That simply does not happen in the real world.
It is very dangerous to respond to unsolicited emails by giving the sender any personal information. This risk also applies to text messages, chat apps, and social media messages, as well as links that direct you to enter personal details. If you receive a suspicious email that includes links or asks you to update your information, do not click on anything unless you are absolutely certain it came from a trusted and safe sender.
In general, emails that ask for personal information, account information, or login details are always phishing attempts and should be deleted without replying. If you treat all unsolicited and suspicious emails this way, you will be much safer.