What? I Won? Really?

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In just only the last couple of weeks, the Savvy Sentinel has received so many emails telling me that I won. Gosh, first there was the Ninja Grill and Griddle; then my choice of a prize from Sam's Club worth up to $100; a Yeti backpack cooler; and lots of unspecified prizes from Lowe's, CVS and Walgreens. And let's not forget my personal favorite -- a business deal of $7.5 million! Who needs a lottery ticket when my email box runneth over with all these riches!

But wait a minute. Were any of these real or legitimate? Of course not! But the scammers and fraudsters are well versed in basic human reactions. Who wouldn't like to be successful and win something? And they know that if they can pique our interest enough with an enticing offer, many of us won't look the emails over with a critical eye or verify even simple information about the email or the sender. We, more often than not, will give little or no critical thought to the authenticity or credibility of the email or its sender and simply will click away.

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So what's the harm of us clicking on a link or replying to one of these emails? Believe it or not, the harm can range from a mere annoyance to thousands and thousands of dollars being taken out of your pocket.

You see when you click a link, you have taken the first step into a scammer's or fraudster's trap. And believe me, they want it all. They want your money, they want your identity info, they want your passwords and access to your accounts. And once you engage, they will tirelessly hound you to wear you down and convince you of whatever fairy tale they are using in order to get you to send them what they want.

Yes, they will tell you you won, but before you can actually receive your prize, just one thing -- you will need to send money to cover administrative fees. And then they will try to convince you of the urgency of sending or transferring that money ASAP before the prize reverts back to the pool and is awarded to someone else. Hurry, hurry! They will do their best to keep the pressure on you until they have achieved their goal.

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If it's money they are after, they might ask you to wire the money to an account that they give you numbers for. Or they might as you to purchase gift cards and then send them the gift cards. Think about it for a minute. Gift cards are ideal for a scammer because once you send them, they have your money to spend at will with no further authorization or identification needed. When you make a purchase with a gift card, you don't need to identify yourself in any way. The card is as good as cash.

Or they may entice you to respond to their alluring email. Once you do so, they will use any means necessary and any story that works to convince you to give them your personal information -- your full name, your address, your phone number, a relative's name, your Social Security number, your account numbers and/or passwords, and so on.

We can just about guarantee that you will never receive that prize that sounded so good.

So how do you know an email is not legit? With just a few seconds review, you can quickly spot most of these fraudulent emails. Remember the Ninja Grill and Griddle? Here is the actual scam email received with some of the information blocked out.

The From indicated in dark bold letters that it was from K.o.h.l's. Now Kohl's is, of course, a legitimate retailer; but they do not spell the name of their business that way with periods between each letter. Also, right next to that bold "from" address there is a second address. In this case, it was in the format of <____________@____.com. There were letters in place of those underlines but we do not want to further the fraud and have covered that address. Anyone could google Kohl's and quickly determine that the email address format used is nothing like what the legitimate Kohl's retail business uses.

Also, in an attempt to make the email appear more legitimate, at the bottom of the email is one of the commonly seen statements -- if you do not wish to receive more of these emails, click here or write to the given address. BEWARE! The click here link will quickly sink you into their clutches. And the unsubscribe address -- well, it is of course is fake. A quick google search of the address shows that this address is for a post office box business and there are numerous posts about the address being used for scams and fraud.

And clicking on that unsubscribe link -- GMail Help says "Unsubscribing (or replying) from true spam is about the worst possible thing you can do. All that does is: (1) validate your e-mail address works, (2) shows that you open and read spam, and (3) proves you’re willing to click a link in spam. That almost guarantees you’ll get even more spam." So hey, JUST DON'T DO IT!

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So what should you do? Well, when you get that email that says you've won something wonderful, take a couple beats to think it over and check it out. Does the sending address look legitimate? Take a minute to Google the business and see what email address format they typically use. Are there misspellings or obvious grammar errors in the address, subject line or body of the email? Legitimate businesses are typically very careful not to make these mistakes but scammers from another country or language often leave these telltale signs.

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Are they asking you to click a link within the email? STOP! Take your fingers off that mouse!

If you think an offer may be legitimate, (and remember there's no free ride!), it's way better to take a couple minutes to independently call or email the business directly yourself and verify the offer. If it's a real offer, they will not mind whatsoever your calling to check it out.

If you determine that an email is potentially fake and a scam or a fraud, the best thing you can do is hit that delete button. Do not engage with the sender, just delete it and move along.

So how did so many scammers know to send us those fraudulent emails? In a future post, we will discuss a few of the ways scammers determine who to send out the emails to what you can do to protect yourself a little more from the scourge of email phishing. Stay tuned!