According to the latest reports, 90 Billion spam emails are sent every day. Luckily, they’re not all ending up in your email box. But, still too many are.
While reading and posting the spam emails that I receive, I’ve noticed a really simple and obvious way to spot if an email is a scam just waiting to happen.
Typographical errors.
These typo’s aren’t just common misspellings that you and I tend to make everyday, like using “there” instead of “they’re”. We’re talking about the most basic of errors we all learn from the moment we started learning how to write. And that is; 1) Starting a sentence with a capital letter and, 2) Adding a space between the “period” and the first letter of the next sentence.
I see this all the time. At least i99.9% of the spam I receive contains these simple errors. It’s an obvious “tell” that the email is a scam.
Here’s one example;
… during the course of the transaction.I want to compensate you and show my gratitude to you with the sum of $1,200,000.00.i have left a certified international bank draft for you worth of $1,200,000.00($1.2million) cashable anywhere in the world.
Look at it, it’s a total mess. No spaces between sentences and using a lower case “i” instead of a capitol “I”—that’s grammar 101.
Can you actually image that a legitimate company handling and offering 1.2 million dollars wouldn’t spend ten minutes and twenty dollars to have someone proof read their email? I don’t think so.
It’s a total giveaway that they are trying to scam you.
So next time you get an email offering you money—in any amount—reread it carefully. If it has typographical errors, it a dead giveaway that the email is scam.
