As promised in last week’s article about spam, I wanted to show you how to view and spot fake email addresses in case something is not caught by your email provider’s spam filters. Next week I’ll write an article on how to spot fake emails.
It’s possible that a legitimate company’s email system has been hacked by a criminal to send out scam emails. Because the email domain is valid, the spam filter may not have picked up the hack.
Don’t ever click anything in the fake email or try to unsubscribe from it because then the criminal knows your email address is valid. If your email system has the ability to mark something as spam, do that.
Every email program and application show email addresses differently. To see the full email address, look in the application’s help for “how to see the sender email address”.
Sometimes criminals create new domains to fake legitimate companies, such as “emailstatefarm.com”, but those are quickly found and closed down. If something seems suspect, assume it is fake and don’t click or reply to it.
In the following iPhone example, I show where someone created a fake State Farm email. It doesn’t have the statefarm.com domain so I know for certain that it’s fake.
iPhone mail app:
- Tap the From name. It shows an abbreviated email address.
- Tap the email a second time to see the email address.
Android Gmail app:
- At the top of the email, click the little arrow next to the to line.
- A pop-up will display with the sender’s email address, the reply-to address, security of the email, and more information.
Remember, your email provider is not going to be able to identify every fake email address. It’s up to you to be cautious and keep yourself cyber safe.