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How to Identify and Report Spam Emails

How to Identify and Report Spam Emails.

We all despise annoying spam emails and we all get them on a regular basis from various sources and for different purposes.

Spam email could be as simple as advertising or more dangerous such as fraud or phishing. They arrive in your inbox in all “shapes and sizes”.

So how do we put an end to spam and make a dent in these people sending the the spam emails? The true answer is that we will probably never be able to completely eliminate spam but we can make a combined effort to reduce spam for everyone.

Beware of Spam Emails

Spam emails can pose a serious threat and should be taken seriously.

There are a few things you should know about spam emails and what not to do with them. Many people get caught by spam or phishing emails that could sometimes be as serious as compromising their sensitive data such as a bank account or credit card. Here are some things you shouldn’t do:

• Do not reply to spam emails, the From header is most likely forged.
• Do not click any links in a spam or phishing email.
• If possible, do not open it as it may contain read tracking in it.

How to Identify Spam Emails

Before we look at how to help reduce spam, you first need to identify whether or not an email is a spam email.

You can attempt to identify spam emails and take action.

It is sometimes hard to identify whether or not an email is a spam email. Here are some things you can check:

1. Is the sender a known sender or someone in your contacts list?
2. Does the subject contain spam words or phases that look suspicious?
3. Are there links in the email that are suspicious, wanting you to take an action or verify something?
4. Hover over links to see if the link is really what the text says it is.
5. Are there typing or grammar mistakes in the email that look suspicious?
6. Is the entire email message an image and not actual text?
7. Does the email have suspicious attachments like .xls, .exe, etc. on it?
8. Did the email initially fall into your spam/junk folder?
9. Is the email from a bank or a payment processor? They will never ask you to click links inside emails.

There are more ways of identifying spam emails but these are some of the ways you can check.

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, chances are that the email could be a spam email. You can then consider marking it as spam and also report it as described below.

You can also use SpamScore email spam score checker to identify emails by redirecting the email there.

How to Report Spam Emails

1. Mark Emails as Spam

The first and most simple way of reporting spam is by marking spam emails as – well spam.

In your email client such as Outlook, MacOS mail, etc. or in your webmail client like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. you can mark an email as spam if it is a spam message. Webmail clients such as Gmail will recognize your report and formulate an algorithm to stop these spammers based on multiple reports.

Marking emails as spam in your email client is the first, best step to take.

2. Report to the Spam Police

Who are the spam police? SpamCop.net is officially known as the spam police.

Notify authorities so that they can put a stop to spam emails.

Go to their website and either forward the spam email to the email address provided there or paste the raw source of the email. Then proceed to file the spam report with any comments if possible.

SpamCop.net will process the report and send it to the relevant ISP/s and also add to their blacklist based on multiple reports.