A member of my English class forwarded me an email last night that they weren't sure about and asked me to translate. It was someone wanting to book their holiday cottage. As a native English speaker it was immediately obvious that it was a scam. From the initial 'Greetings Mrs.', through to the poor English and the English sounding name that was just a couple of beats off.
Some of my beginners though would certainly be taken in by the first email so I was thinking of highlighting this in my class tonight. What are the first signs of a scam mail to you? If you didn't speak English well, how do you think you could spot the beginnings of a scam? Has anyone got any other copies I could show and highlight the flowery phrases etc? Thanks for any responses...
Our junior school ran a police & education authority formulated advice course on internet safety for parents and kids . my wife kiddy & I found a lot of mileage in it .
some things that readily come to mind ( I might repeat myself here ) are :-
Use a security device and keep your computer up to date for virus protection , ,make backup's and make restore points.
Write the restore point dates down in your diary so if things go pear shaped you can get back to a known safe point .
Yreat as suspect any email from anyone you don't know , especially if they ask you to click on a link in the email. Never ever click the link , it might be a false link that hides the mechanism to encrypt your hard drive and then you'll be held to ransom of a couple of hundred dollars or more for it to be un encrypted ( a scam in it's self )or it can take you to a spoof website where you give your financial or personal details away unknowingly .
Apparently it could also drop a virus or key logger into your computer so that when you're on line someone somewhere can see exactly what you are typing and this will include pass words and bank details .
Any email that does not use my given name or last name is highly suspect . So dear Sir or Dear madam Or one that starts " Hi " , " Hi there " or My name is XXXXX and never contains my first name & my full name are all considered by me as junk /spam and never opened just deleted en masse .
Any email that offers or invites me to buy or sell something are all treated as spam unles I have made the approach , I don't do financial transactions or business with strangers unless I have instigated that path way that . Don't confuse that with big national companies that I sign up to who send me regular offers ( I still go to their websites away from the emails info ..
13 & a 1/2 years ago I signed up to an email, offering me a " TESCO diet " as I was trying to keep my weight down due to immobility /disability . it seamed real the website even looked like the Tesco website does . Thankfully as a security device on that email account I was able to put my name in as " mytescodietthing " I'm still getting all sorts of the above type of spam from it at that email address .
If you can sign up for thing on company websites with such changing email addresses you'll have a bit of added protection by being able to recognise hacked servers giving you emails to that dedicated address from .
Right clicking on the senders name to get the details of the email properties also helps give you a clue .
Seeing as your in France I'd say like the UK almost any email that's not grammatically correct ( here in English ) in French or is badly spelt it is a spam one .
I've had several spam emails that are well spelt & gramatically correct but the language does not flow naturally , you can tell it is not from a native speaker / writer .
I have several business interest in china. The people who were trying to get me to pay $ 3,000 USD for a priority parcel that was being held up in customs didn't use the English my contacts used . Plus whenever did you hear of such an exact figure being demanded .. in real life its usually so many dollars & so many cents or what ever currency you're playing with .
A few quick emails to all of my contacts told me there were no parcels in the pipe line .
I don't think your utilities companies , tax offices , banks or financial institutions companies will ever send you emails asking for bank details somewhere in the text of an email but like here in the UK they will sometimes send an email with your full name on it making you offers.
I bin these anyway ... if i want something I go direct to the companies websites using the address I find on google or the one I've previously used...never copy & paste an address from an email , that way if there is an extra dot in it or a dot is missing etc. you won't get caught out . Only pay on line if you see the secure padlock icon in the companies address line .
Don't click any links in emails or use email supplied telephone numbers to fi=ollow up the email , just go to your account via your browser and see what messages the bank etc. has for you ..same with eBay & PayPal ..go to the website and log in but never ever do it from the email .
Obviously any email that invites you to help move vehicles , money, gold diamonds or bearer bonds etc etc. from a corrupt deal in a foreign company is trying to get your personal details or will be trying to steal small amounts of a few pennies here & there , if successful they will then go on to empty your bank/ financial account .
The old saying applies ....If it looks too good to be true it usually is too good to be true ..so don't do it . ( this applies to most of our lives as well )
Keep away from anything that concerns BITCOINS , legal high's drugs or porn , for 99.9% of the time you'll get taken for a ride by a criminal syndicate .
Perhaps now is a good time to say .. look up " Snopes " they have zillions of examples of spams and frauds that people are trying to do
Topic: scam emails (Read 5575 times)
