The red flags I mentioned yesterday on avoiding phone scams (sense of urgency and a request to use a gift card or other cyber currency), might also be vying for your attention if you receive an email that requests payment (known as "phishing").
There are other red flags that may be trying to catch your attention. These include:
(1) mis-spellings and weird grammar usage in the title or text of the email, and
(2) any attachment from anybody you aren't expecting - don't click the link.
Even if it indicates there's a problem with payment, or your account "needs to be updated." If your bank (or a legit company you've done business with) needs to contact you for anything, they have your phone number and other methods of contact. Or you could always log into said company manually and see if you've received any notifications through their actual web page.
As a rule, get in the habit of looking closely at the address that the email came from. Oftentimes in scams, the domain is one-letter off or in another way very slightly different than a legitimate email address - this is called "spoofing" and this is how cybercriminals get their foot in the door to compromise you or a company with further attacks.
For more great tips on avoiding email scams, visit https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-scams . We have written many blogs on ways to avoid email and phishing scams - use the search bar at the top-left of our blog to find more! To read yesterday's blog on phone scams, go here.
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