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How To Detect Yahoo Email Scams In Three Easy Steps

Millions of emails are sent and received everyday by Internet users across the globe. However, not all of these emails are genuine. Although there has been increasing efforts to enlighten users about the dangers of Internet fraud, many still fall victim to this disgusting act.

Recently, I received a call from a friend who had been sent one of such emails purportedly from Yahoo customer Care (see/click image below) threatening to deactivate his account unless he replied to the message with his personal details. The email looked legitimate at first glance as it contained Yahoo banners, links to the original Yahoo home page and an ‘expired’ Yahoo web survey. However, it took me less than 10 seconds to know that it was a scam and I will tell you how.

Example of Yahoo email spam
The email content had 3 easy giveaways that you should look out for if you are uncertain about the source of an email in your inbox.

1. The Sender Information: this is located in the header section and usually contains the name of the sender and the email address from which it was sent. In this case, the sender information appeared as follows;

“From: Yahoo! Mail Team Service <[email protected]>”
Now note that although the sender’s name was ‘Yahoo! Mail Team Service’, the sender’s address, in the angle bracket revealed otherwise. Now that is certainly NOT a message from the Yahoo customer services!

2. Spelling Errors: this is almost always present in such emails. An official message from Yahoo will not contain grammatical blunders and spelling mistakes such as those commonly found in hoax emails.
3. Yahoo Policy: the following should be a standard rule of thumb for all Internet users. Never give away your personal information on the Internet especially when requested through an email. Most reputable organisations, such as Yahoo, have a policy never to ask for your password let alone other personal information through emails.

Although the above list is non-exhaustive, the presence of any one of the three should be enough to arouse your suspicion. So there you go, you have no more excuses to fall victim of such email pranks.

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19 Comments

19 Comments

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    February 27, 2010 at 11:51 pm

    I want to thank the blogger very much not only for this post but also for his all previous efforts. I found techsling.com to be greatly interesting. I will be coming back to techsling.com for more information.

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    February 28, 2010 at 7:50 pm

    Must say its a impressive information for me. Sorry for my bad English, i am from Spain..I have Bookmarked this webpage on how to detect yahoo email scams in three easy steps

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    March 19, 2010 at 7:32 pm

    Thanks for sharing the information. It is very important not to share information about your passwords and credit card details in an email. When you are payment online, make sure that the payment url is secure, a secure url start with “https://”

    • Admin

      April 23, 2010 at 10:07 am

      Very valid point. Thanks.

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  6. mim

    June 30, 2010 at 7:01 am

    Please tell me,

    How long do I have to tolerate all the following bulshit supposed to be originated from Yahoo? Isn’t there anybody responsible to bring those people to Court, for trying to deceiving me into revealing my password which should then be used against my will and without my knowledge to all my contacts for illegal purposes?

    …………………………..
    …………………….

    Final Warning!!!
    From: Yahoo Customer Service Add to Contacts
    To:

    ——————————————————————————–

    We are really sorry for any inconvinience this might cause you. Due to the congestion in all Yahoo! account users, Yahoo! will be shuting down all unused accounts. In order to avoid the deactivation of your account, you will have to confirm your e-mail by filling your Login Info below by clicking the reply button.

    Full name: …………………………………..

    Username: …………………………………..
    Password: …………………………………..
    Date Of Birth: ……………………………….
    Occupation: …………………………………
    Country Of Residence: ……………………

    After you must have followed the instructions on the sheet, your Yahoo! account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thank you for your usual co-operation. We apologize for any inconvinience.

    Yahoo! Customer Care
    Case number: 2641930
    Property: Account Security

    Regards,
    Yahoo! Account Services
    ————————-
    We are really sorry for any inconvinience this might cause you.

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    November 8, 2010 at 7:54 pm

    It blows my mind that the people who keep trying to perpetrate this stuff continually give themselves away with bad grammar and spelling mistakes. You’d think if they were going to get organized enough to send out all of that spam that they could get organized enough to make their emails be a little more convincing. But hey, as long as they want to give themselves away like that, it’s fine by me!

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    December 11, 2010 at 2:17 am

    Thanks for the email scam tutorial, I have been having a problem with this for awhile and really could not figure out what to do. I also have been getting a popup from people that says chat with me and gives the persons details (asl) but I never clicked it, is this a scam?

  9. FHA Home Loans

    February 23, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    Thank you for this. I know that to most experienced readers, your blog might seem trivial and even very basic, but there are so many people out there who are taken by these scams because they just do not know any better. By pointing these simple ways to detect a scam, I am sure that you are helping any people to avoid a painful experience. Thanks again.

  10. adam

    April 1, 2011 at 10:30 am

    Just had a couple of emails appearing to be fake so I did a search and found your site. Some good tips on here. It has now made me more aware, Nigerian fraudsters seem to get all the blame.

  11. Katie Smith

    April 7, 2011 at 9:27 pm

    @Adam:

    Nigerian scammers are everywhere so be cautious in replying to emails and messages that you receive.

    I believe that the most important rule here is do not give your personal and important details through email or through messages. It is also important to report suspicious emails so that the admin can have it checked and confirm if that is fake or not. That is, just to be on the safe side.

  12. Rachel

    April 10, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    I always use the filter options for unsolicited emails. I hate them, they’d fill up my

    inbox with a barrage of nonsense messages and some are more likely to contain virus

    with them. I definitely add these to my filtered emails…

    Webmaster of All Web Directory

  13. Taylor Timms

    April 10, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    Good thing you post it,cost I don’t like spam too.

  14. Karl McCullough

    April 12, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    Yeah, email scams are becoming a nuisance. They are growing day by day. Thanks to people like you who are constantly updating net users on such scams through blogs like yours. Keep ’em coming.
    .
    Karl McCullough
    Author of Hunting Tips for Beginners book.

  15. Neil

    April 14, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    They really easy to spot, most of my friends, ( me included0 have had their emails hijacked, I get at least one a day, saying I should buy this product from this site, do people actually fall for this?

  16. Kate Wilson

    May 2, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    Very good! I hate spam as well, and I do received a lot of emails from unknown sender.

  17. Diane

    May 18, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    Thanks for these tips. I get spam emails everyday and I hate fussing with them. Do you know if there’s a ways to possible eliminate these in all?

  18. Jac Evans

    January 3, 2012 at 11:44 pm

    Hi
    Email is the necessary thing for communication now a days. When we send the Email then it is published. There is not too much secret. These three are easy steps to detect yahoo mail scam.
    thanks,

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