How to detect e-mail fraud

Emails are used by scammers because of the complete anonymity they give. They are location neutral so you can't even tell if they are really coming from the country they are saying. Emails are free therefore easy to get an account.

Here are the steps to investigate the validity of the sender.

Check the sender

Look at the actual email address.

Scammer emails are most often Yahoo, Hotmail or other easily acquired General Domain accounts and often contain numbers or the phrases 'luv', 'sexy','4real', '4luv' or '4u' in their addresses .

Check the IP addresses the email came from.

Take extra precaution when the e-mail is coming from Nigeria. This country has a very complex fraud industry where they will steal your money, invite you to come to their country and compromise your safety once you are there. Please stay away. Unfortunately, Nigeria is not the only culprit in Africa as scams come routinely from the whole West Africa and gangs located in Europe.

Get an IP trace done.

This will tell you which country the person is sending the email from and their IP address. By having this information, you can go on dedicated fraud lists on www.Yahoo.com and www.Ebay.com to see if your sender is included. You should continue to exercise caution even if they pass the IP test.

Look for inconsistencies in the body of text

Generally, the first e-mail will be well worded as the scammers will have pre-written emails. Sometimes, the scammers do not even bother being meticulous and this is where you will see that this is fraud. For example, you are selling/inquiring about jeans and they will respond with information about motorcycles. There is very high percentage that this is a fraud. Also, start asking technical questions about your products and see if they can properly answer you.

Check the name of the sender

Scammers from other countries often confuse first name and last name. They also use very common names such as Smith, Williamd, Moore etc... Also, check for inconsistencies in the name they use on replies to your email.

Titles

Scammers like to use titles to describe themselves such as Chief, General, Prince and yes even King.

Senders who attribute positive adjectives to themselves to gain your trust.

Be on the lookout for the senders who refer to themselves as "truthful, trustworthy, god-fearing or religious.

Senders who want to send detailed information about themselves including a picture at an early stage.

Be aware of scammers who want to send you their picture right away to get you hooked. Most of the time, the pictures are downloaded from modeling websites.

Are senders correctly addressing you?

Are you receiving emails addressed to someone else? Scammers are working on various different scams and they can get confused or make mistakes.

Language and writing style

Look at the greeting. 'Goodday' is very prevalent. Do they start to use endearments too soon or too easily?

Scammers often use 'textspeak' extensively - "U said U were selling ", "I have a cheque 4U. "

Is the level of English what you would expect from the alleged identity? Scam emails often use bad English.

Rush to conclude the deal

Beware of anybody who wants to rush or hurry you to conclude the deal. Sometimes they will offer you a deal that is too good to be true. It probably is!

Beware of buyers that are willing to pay over the selling price to get the products quickly. They will give you million of reasons for this. Just walk away from this deal.

Content by MercaTrade.com

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