How To Spot Suspicious Emails
BOSTON (CBS) - This is National Consumers Protection Week. This is a national campaign to help consumers make better-informed decisions and avoid being scammed.
How To Spot Suspicious Emails
Attorney General Healey's office has joined the battle and will be holding informational meetings around the state all week. Log onto their website to get a list of the events in your neighborhood.
Be on the lookout for this email the Better Business Bureau warns. The fake messages claim someone ordered a background check on you, but it's really a ploy to get you to click an infected link.
How the Scam Works
You receive an email with the subject line: "Someone recently viewed your background-information." Curious, you open it. The message claims to be an automatically-generated notification that someone "has just recently ordered the results of your background-check."
Interested in who requested information about you? At the bottom of the message is a link to "find out more." You may be curious, but don't click the link! It will download malware to your computer. Do not to click on links that come in unsolicited emails.
Here are some more ways to spot a malicious email just in case your spam filter doesn't catch it.
The email claims to have information about you, but you never signed up for it. Scams often pretend to be personalized for you, but they are actually blast emails. If you never signed up for custom email alerts, you shouldn't be receiving them.
Check out the "From" field: Scammers have the ability to mask email addresses, making the message appear to come from a legitimate source. But they don't always use it. Look out for email addresses that don't match the brand used in the email message.
Watch for typos, strange phrasing and bad grammar. Scammers can easily copy a brand's logo and email format, but awkward wording and poor grammar are typically a giveaway that the message is a scam.
One more thing: Report Scams
If you think you may have been scammed: File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
Visit ftc.gov/idtheft, where you'll find out how to minimize your risk of identity theft.
Report scams to the State Attorney General.
If you get unsolicited email offers or spam, send the messages to spam@uce.gov.
If you get what looks like lottery material from a foreign country through the postal mail, take it to your local postmaster.
