How can you tell if an email is real or a scam? Expert explains red flags
The consequences of falling victim to a scam email can be dire - so how can you avoid it?
(WGN Radio) — You've undoubtedly been inundated with spam phone calls in the past (remember being called about your car's extended warranty?), but what about your email inbox? And to make things more complicated, with the advancements in artificial intelligence, how can you tell if an email is even from a real person?
"It is vitally important that you read your email and texts carefully, social media strategist and expert Scott Kleinberg told WGN Radio's Bob Sirott earlier this month. "When it comes to our online life, we scan — we don't read, and we don't read because we don't have time to read."
By not reading carefully, Kleinberg warns, we can miss important clues that what we're reading is, in fact, a scam.
"That's just not how reputable companies operate. Just because you receive it doesn't mean you should act on it, and therein lies the big problem — so many of us do," Kleinberg says (you can listen to his full interview in the audio player below).
He also notes that there are "tells" that will give away a spam email, even if it's written by a bot. Among those is the language of the message.
"When the English sounds just a little bit off, or the sentence has extra spaces between periods," Kleinberg says, pointing out some of the key red flags of an AI-written email. Other warning signs may include a different text or font type than you might expect.
If you've taken a cyber security course for work, you've likely been warned to check the originating email address on a suspicious email. Kleinberg says if you hover over or click on the sender's name and see an email that doesn't seem to fit, it "should be a big red flag waving in your face that you may be about to fall for something sinister."
Here's an example of a scam email. While it may seem like a real Delta Airlines message, the email address shows it's most likely a scam.
Falling for a scam email can have dire consequences. Let's say you do send that suspicious account your login information — you may have just made your other accounts vulnerable as well if they use the same login, Kleinberg warns.
If you have even the slightest bit of doubt about the validity of an email, Kleinberg recommends calling the company or logging into your account to see if the request is valid.
"I would much rather take five or ten minutes now to call the company and inquire than deal with the consequences of not taking that step," he adds, noting that in most cases, a reputable company wouldn't contact you via email or text for your personal information.
Last year, the Better Business Bureau warned that while older adults are prime to falling victim to scams, younger adults, specifically Gen Z, are losing the most money to scams. The BBB does offer a Scam Tracker, which allows you to report suspected scams and view those that others have reported.