How do I know if an e-mail is a scam?

E-mail scams are common. You might receive a fake e-mail claiming to be from real businesses, like banks. Here are some tips to recognizing e-mail scams:

1) Do you recognize the sender's name or the e-mail address? Even if the e-mail looks like it's coming from PayPal, this is easily faked. 

2) Are they any misspellings? Fake e-mails are often from non-English speaking countries, and misspellings or strange turns of phrase are common. 

3) Do you even have an account with the business? We get e-mails from banks we don't use all the time. They're all scams.

4) Hover over (but don't click!) a link in the e-mail. Does the URL in the status bar look legitimate, or does it look like it's going to a big, long confusing URL? 

5) Real businesses will NEVER ask you to confirm your password via e-mail - don't fall for this

6) If you click the link and your browser tells you that you are on a phishing website, don't proceed any further!

7) When in doubt, call the bank or business in question to verify whether they sent the message.

E-mail setup scams

You might receive e-mails that claim to be from CapeMay.com or Cape Publishing, containing "setup files" or "settings files." The text of these emails may be similar to this:

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox mail@example.com settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings open attached file.

Regardless of what is says in the "FROM" field, these e-mails do not originate from our server and likely contain dangerous files intended to harm your computer. Do not open these e-mails. Do not open the attachments. Do not forward these e-mails to us. Delete them immediately.

Any information on your e-mail accounts will originate directly from either Jessica or Bernie. We will never send you "setup files" for your e-mail account, as each computer must be configured depending on what e-mail client you are using.

We are not responsible for any damage to your computer that might arise from you opening such files.