How To Reduce Unwanted Spam Emails

Spam emails are getting more and more cunning in recent years, and it’s important that you’re clued up on all the latest knowledge on the best ways to avoid a scam.

Spam emails are one of the most widely utilized hacking tools used to access computers and phones. Further in this article, you will learn tricks to watch out for in terms of spotting a spam email and preventing a possible scam. One thing to remember when it comes to spam emails is that spammers are always trying to find new ways to trick you into handing over sensitive information. Be vigilant, and if something looks slightly suspicious, it probably is. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Here are some tips to ensure you are staying safe and protected:

1. Be suspicious. Don’t just trust an email because it has a company’s logo on it.

The most important thing is to stay suspicious. Emails are not always particularly secure in nature, and hackers know the best ways to make an email look and seem legit. Don’t be fooled if an email has a companies logo on it, logos can be easily replicated and applied to any email.

2. Don’t click on any links or open any attachments.

If you’re unsure on who sent you a link or where a link is leading you, don’t open it. If there is an attachment attached to an email that looks suspicious, simply do not open it. These two simple measures reduce the risk of spammers gaining access to your computer significantly.

3. Beware of spelling mistakes.

Spam emails are often easy to spot because they look rushed and contain simple spelling mistakes or sentences that don’t make sense. They often contain poor grammar and emboldened words or phrases used to instil a sense of urgency such as “Hurry”, “Now” and “Urgent”. This can be a big giveaway to if an email is legit or not. Just think, if it was really that urgent, wouldn’t they just call you in the first place?

4. If it’s really important, it’s unlikely a company will email you.

It is very unlikely that your bank will ever email you with urgent information. Usually, if your bank needs to get hold of you, they will simply call you. Banks will never ask for your card details through email, especially without stating the reason for asking for them in the first place.

If you ever see an email from your bank asking for your information, immediately delete the email and notify the bank of the email that you’ve received. You may be able to help prevent someone else from getting scammed also.

5. Check the email address and domain name

Scammers will often send emails from email addresses that don’t look legitimate, but come from the name of the company such as “Barclays Bank Alerts”. If you click on the name it will show you the actual email address, and more times than not it comes from a very illegitimate looking address containing a random string of numbers and letters. Most legitimate email domain names will have come from a public domain, for example, @gmail.com or @icloud.com. If it is something like @urgent000.com, then you know that it is spam.

This goes for the website address that any links are sending you to. Usually, it won’t be linked to an official business website, which should raise your alarm bells and allow you to clearly see that it is coming from an unknown source.

Whilst there is no way to ensure your inbox stays completely free from any spam emails, there are some preventative measures you can take to lessen the risk of you receiving spam.

1. If you receive a spam email, mark it as spam. By doing so, your email will be able to notice similar spam emails more effectively, and they will be filtered out being marked as spam automatically.
2. Do not interact with the spam email. Once you have marked it as spam, simply delete it so that you do not accidentally click on it. If you can help it, try not to even open the email.
3. Try to avoid giving out your email address as much as possible. A good way to do this is to create a secondary email account that you use to sign up to things online, meaning you have one email for personal use and one that is signed up to multiple mailing lists. Remember, as soon as you input your email address somewhere online, the likelihood is that you are signing up to a mailing list.