Don't Get Caught By Phishing Emails

Distinguishing an actual e mail from a phishing e mail is not that difficult in case you know what to look for. Let's start off by describing what a phishing e mail is. Fundamentally, they are any emails that try to trick you in to performing a specific action (suck as clicking on a link) by pretending to represent a reputable company or organization (possibly that you have an association with). Let's take a glance at a few ways to recognize a phishing or scam e mail.

The first thing to look at is the e mail address it is being sent from. Sometimes the e mail address is not even related to the company that the e mail is saying they represent. If the e mail address does not match the company name this ought to make you skeptical from the beginning.

The next thing to look at is the greeting of the e mail. Most phishing e mail greetings will be generic like "Hello Loyal Customer" as against a personal or custom-made greeting like "Dear Mr. Sampson". A generic greeting is another strong indicator that the e mail may not be legitimate.

You ought to also pay close attention to the spelling & grammar in the e mail. Lots of scam emails have poor spelling, punctuation, & grammar. Let's face it, not lots of immense companies or organizations send out emails littered with spelling mistakes.

The tone of the e mail is another important factor in determining the legitimacy of an e mail. Lots of phishing emails will be threatening or try to coerce you in to doing something. For example, a phishing e mail may threaten to cancel your account unless you click on the link below to confirm your account details. Sometimes they will even set a date that you must perform this action by. Any e mail with threatening messages like these is a powerful indicator that it is a scam e mail.

Sometimes in a phishing e mail there will be a link that they are asking you to click. Never click on any link in any e mail unless you are positive it is from a reliable source. You cannot do much harm by opening a scam e mail, but you jeopardize the safety of your personal knowledge & the security of your computer by clicking on a link in a phishing e mail. In case you are uncertain if a link is safe or not try hovering over the link (do not click on it) & look at the net site address in the status bar on your computer. Check to see if the net site address is for the company that they say they are.