Tips for spotting email scams
The scam you wrote
about has been going on for at least the past five to eight years. My
guess is that most of the scammers are from Nigeria. The companies mentioned
are always legitimate. However, these guys (or gals) have no connection to the
company.
My recommendation? Don’t check out the companies at all. They
are almost certainly legitimate. That’s part of the scam – they do a bit of
homework before mass mailing their emails. At most, right-click on “message
options” to see if the email looks like it really came from the company
identified. In most cases it won’t.
If you feel obliged to call after taking this step, and they say
they are from a company in the U.K., listen to their accent and use of English.
If they don’t sound right, forget it. If you go this far and are still not
certain, ask them how they found you. If they don’t mention a referral source
or other information which sounds legitimate, “fuggedaboutit.” If they still
send you a check and you haven’t signed them up, rip it up and put it in the
trash.
If you ignore everything above and send them a fee agreement,
you’ve just wasted a whole lot of time on something that has a 99.99 percent
chance of being a scam: Don’t go there.
John
M. Daley
San Jose