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Top Email Scams And How To Avoid Them

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 41 Comments

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Nearly every single time I check my email, I will see some sort of email scam or internet fraud scheme. Some of these scam emails are obviously fake, whereas others sometimes look quite real.

While many believe that email scams are something they would never fall for, they do exist for a reason.

Someone must be falling for them.

Someone must be losing money to them or scammers wouldn’t be attempting to steal money and/or identities in the first place.

In fact, according to Ultrascan AGI, nearly $13 billion was taken from individuals just from the well-known Nigerian scam emails in 2013 alone. There are many other internet fraud schemes out there as well that account for billions more.

While I have never lost money to an email scam, I did almost fall for one around five years ago (see #3 below). I also witnessed many scam emails when we were trying to find a rental home recently, which you can read in my post Craigslist Scams I Encountered When Looking For A Rental Plus Real Scam Emails.

Below are several different scam emails that many are currently falling for. Continue reading at the end to learn about how to not become a victim of internet fraud as well.

 

1. The 419 email scam.

The most well-known internet fraud scheme is most likely the 419 email scam. Even though many know about this scam, people still fall for this scam each and every single day.

With the 419 email scam, a victim will usually receive an email from a stranger who is a prince, a government worker, or someone else. The scammer then states that their money is currently “stuck” somewhere and they need money transferred to them so that they can gain access to their money (or something else similar to that story). The scammer then offers their victim money in return for “helping them out.”

Sadly, many fall for the 419 email scam. Victims usually give up money of their own as well as their identity, and receive nothing in return.

If you receive an email from someone claiming to be a foreign prince or something similar, just delete the email immediately. No prince is going to email you, no matter how interesting that sounds.

 

2. The lottery scam.

Oh, the lottery scam… Rarely a week goes by where I don’t “win” $100,000,000.

If only these emails were real!

The lottery email scam is when a scammer sends an email stating that you have won the lottery. They just need you to pay money upfront before you can claim your lottery winnings. They also may say that they are required to get your personal information.

You know that the lottery email is pure internet fraud because you most likely never even entered to win a foreign lottery. Lotteries also never ask for you to pay for fees, so that is another clue. Plus, what’s the chance that you’ve won the lottery anyways?

Related: Phone Scams: The Best Tips To Avoid Becoming A Victim

 

3. The job scam.

When I was in college, I tried finding a nanny job on the side of my full-time job so that I could earn extra money.

For one person, we had several chats over email. They offered to pay me well, but then I received an email asking for a ton of information that I knew they did not need. They asked for my social security number, my bank account information, and more.

I thought that was very odd. We had never met, the interview process was too easy, and there was no reason for them to need the information as well. They offered to pay me more and more money as long as I would give them my personal information. Once I called them out on their email scam, I never heard back from them…

The job scam is when you apply for a job and then the hiring manager tells you that you have it with little effort required from you. There are no interviews (or the interviews are very easy), the job supposedly pays well, has great benefits, and so on.

That’s when they get you. They then ask for a ton of personal information they say is needed so that they can fill out your employee paperwork, set up direct deposit, and so on. While many jobs do need certain information, if you easily get a job that seems too good to be true then you should be very wary of any information that you give to them. At least talk to the person and do your research on whether or not the position is real.

Related: How To Write a Check

 

4. The PayPal scam.

The PayPal scam is something I receive almost every day. Since I deal with PayPal for my business all the time, these are the type of scams I truly hate. They also seem to be appearing more and more authentic, so I’m sure there are plenty of people falling for PayPal email scams.

The PayPal email scam is when you receive an email from someone who is claiming to be PayPal. The email usually states that your PayPal account is frozen, that something is wrong, and so on. They then ask you to click on a link in the email which will supposedly take you to PayPal’s website.

Except, the link isn’t actually to PayPal’s website. It’s usually to a website that looks VERY much like PayPal’s website. However, it’s actually a scammer who is trying to get your username and password so that they can drain your PayPal account.

There are ways to protect yourself against the PayPal scam though:

  • You should never click on a link that you are questioning. Instead, head on over to PayPal yourself and log in.
  • Check the sender’s email. In some cases, scammers may cloak the email address so it may actually look like it’s coming straight from PayPal, so this may not be enough. However, most of the time the email address is something obviously fake, so that is usually your first clue.

 

How to not be a victim of internet fraud and scam emails.

Even though many fall victim to internet fraud every day, there are many ways to not be next. Below are my tips to stay safe online:

  • If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
  • Keep your personal information safe and do not give it away unless you are 100% sure that it is needed.
  • Don’t trust the sender’s email address. If it seems fishy at all, the email may be cloaked in order to trick you.
  • Are there any misspellings in the email? There is almost at least one misspelled word in an email scam. If you see one, then I would be very wary of an email from your bank, PayPal, etc. as that is usually a big hint that the email is fake.
  • Never click on any links or download anything in a suspicious email.
  • Always be sure that it’s not an email scam before you send anyone money.

Have you ever fallen for scam emails? Do you know anyone who has been a victim of internet fraud?

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About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  1. diane @smartmoneysimplelife says

    The one I see most is the PayPal scam. I get a lot of PayPal emails because I have an online business so I’m always very careful when opening them – some of them are pretty clever and if you’re operating on autopilot you can be in trouble.

    Great tips on how to spot the fakes, too.

    Reply

  2. MyMoneyDesign says

    I think I’ve been sent that Paypal one a few times now and had to think twice before opening it. Sometimes they do a really good job of making it look authentic before you notice the sender’s email address is really funky.

    I can’t believe people still fall for the Nigerian email scam. Have they not seen the news in the last five years?

    Reply

  4. Amy @ DebtGal says

    I haven’t fallen for any email scams, but sometimes they’re pretty clever. Whenever a scam email makes its way into my inbox, I click spam, to hopefully increase the chances that similar ones will be filtered out in the future.

    Reply

  5. Kristina-Cents and Order says

    Great tips Michelle! Having worked in a bank branch for 10+ years, I’ve seen people become victims of all if these.

    One popular variation of the job scam is the mystery shopping scam. They claim to have a job for you and send you a check to cover expenses (but the check is usually in the $2k range). Then you are told that you just wire back a certain amount after taking back your cut. They hope you wire the funds before the check bounces. I think this was one people fell for the most since it was a smaller amount.

    Reply

  7. kammi says

    There is a really good doc on the Sakawa boys, which is basically the name for the guys who steal identities online and then buy cars and fancy things with them in their home towns in Nigeria. What a waste of talent; they could be starting a real business online or something like that instead. It’s the worst for the elderly, who are particularly susceptible and have their life savings wiped out. I went to a conference this weekend in which they were explaining how a lot of businesses get hacked; basically it’s internal and the hacker acts as an Admin or is recognized as one in the system. Evil, but interesting.

    Reply

  10. Jason B says

    I haven’t fallen to any scams but I am definitely starting to see them pop up more and more. A lot of these e-mails go straight to my spam folder anyway. if not I delete them quick.

    Reply

  14. Kim says

    I think the worst is when you get an email from someone you actually know, whose account has been hacked, that says they are stuck somewhere and have lost their wallet and need money to get home. I’ve gotten a couple of those, usually from people who are on my contact list but not really people that would ask me for money in that situation. I don’t think I would fall for it if it was from a close friend or relative, but if my Mom got an email she thought was from me asking for money to get home from somewhere, she’d probably send it. I think older people are more vulnerable because they haven’t had as much experience in the technical world. People who scam on senior citizens are the worst!

    Reply

  15. DC @ Young Adult Money says

    It’s incredible how effective these email scams can be. My work has made me so paranoid about security issues that I’ve even flagged some legit emails because I simply had a bad feeling. It’s better to be paranoid than to accidentally fall for a scam!

    Reply

  16. Brittney @ Life On A Discount says

    I always wonder who fall for the typical sketchy email scam where someone asks you to send money or buy strange items, but like you said, someone if falling for them. I have been surprised while trying to buy items on craigslist where transactions start out fine and then get weird quickly when they ask you to send a money to a foreign country or say they will mail a check for you to deposit (typical strategy is for them to “accidentally” write a check for too much, ask you to cash it and give you the excess back–but you don’t realize it until the check bounces).

    Unfortunately in this world there are a lot of scammers, so you always have to be careful!

    Reply

  18. Saving Sanely says

    When I was 18 I fell for one of these, similar to the PayPal scam but through my shiny new credit card. They got my account info and drained the card. It looked 100% legit! Luckily I didn’t have a high limit and the credit company was very helpful with getting it all straightened out. But I learned quickly not to trust anything on email at face value. A tip they gave me was they will never ask for your login or account info directly by email!

    Reply

  19. Jesse Gernigin says

    Here’s an interesting link to an article written by Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics. He explains why the Nigerian email scam is done the way it is and why it can work. Good read. http://freakonomics.com/2014/04/04/bring-your-think-like-a-freak-questions-for-levitt-and-dubner/

    I’d also add the conservative talk show host bullion scam. The two largest talk show hosts (Rush and Glenn) have email funneling systems that occasionally spit out ‘Buy Bullion’ emails. Avoid them! I own a coin and gold shop. Buying gold and silver can be a good investment if you know the market and understand the pricing. However the pundits send emails about how currency is about to disappear and you should have silver and gold.
    I’ve had nine people (all elderly) who have lost their pensions (read-millions) converting their money into bullion only to find that the currency hasn’t crashed, that they paid a HUGE fee and now have to convert their purchase back into cash and pay taxes on any amount over 10k.
    Eyes open!

    Reply

  20. Michelle says

    I’ve never hear of the Paypal scheme!! I did have a similar situation with a housesitting job I wanted to do…then, I figured out it was a scam. Apparently, a pretty common one too. So, I had fun with the people running the scam-they never saw it coming. LOL!

    Reply

  21. DNN says

    I keep getting these stinkin scam spam emails from different companies allegedly In Cahoots with each other whereas in the title of the email message it keep saying “unsubscribe.” Those spam emails stay straight in the spam folder. I’m too afraid to open them. I find myself cleaning out my spam folder daily and find out later that these crazy emails keep reappearing under different names. Good thing I never bother to open any kind of spam mail in the spam folder. L:-) L

    Reply

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