I find it alarming how many scammer emails I receive.  Our business uses a local IT company to keep our computers updated with protective software and to monitor for problems.  But even with all of this technology the evil-doers are able to sneak their scam emails through.  These nefarious emails look real at first glance but if you look at the grammar, punctuation and verb tense you can usually spot the “fake” from the real deal.

This week I received several scam emails from Microsoft 365 notifying me that my email password was expiring so I needed to reset my password using the link within their email.  Had I done so, it would have given the crooks access to all my emails and all the sensitive information they contained.

The email looked like it was legitimately from Microsoft, but the subject line tipped me off.  It said “Password update is require.”  Instead of “Password update is required.”  Plus, Microsoft would never request a password reset to be done through a link in an email.  I received 4 of these emails within 2 days.

I also received several texts from Netflix telling me my account is on hold due to some trouble with my current billing information and “recovery your account immediately click link bellow:”  Again, incorrect spelling, grammar and wrong word choice within the text made it easy to avoid giving the scammer my billing information.

I suspect the number of people who are duped by these emails is high though.  I didn’t want to be locked out of Netflix and I had to have a working password for Office 365, so they chose subjects that caught my attention and warranted action.

Be cautious and look carefully for clues within their correspondence that will help you determine if it is fake.  It is best to contact the company directly to see if they did indeed contact you, instead of answering a suspicious email and don’t click on any links within the email or text.

You can search on Google for scams from specific companies.  You will not be the only person receiving the email so chances are it has been reported and information exists about it on Google.