0:00 Hi, Christina here from Be The Page SEO. This week we’re doing things a little bit different. We’re going to do a video blog, a vlog, if you will, instead of just written content.

0:13 The reason for this is because we’re going to do a little bit of a show and tell, and it’s easier sometimes to do that when you’re trying to show how to do something than just do it in a written content blog.

0:26 So this week, we are going to go over how to tell if an email is a legitimate email or not.

0:32 I get this question all the time, not only from clients, but from family and friends. Hey, Christina, is this legitimate?

0:38 Do I click on it? Do I not click on it? Do I need to contend to this? Do I not?

0:43 So we’re going to do a little show and tell and give you the tools that you need so that you can identify whether an email is legitimate or not.

0:52 So to get started, we’re going to click into a legitimate email. This is my personal email account, uh, just because I do get a little bit more spam email here than I do in my business account.

1:03 Um, so yeah. Uh, so going into this email, it’s from Mystery Science. This is a brand I’m very familiar with.

1:13 We use this for my kids’ academics. And so the first thing I’m going to look at is the Subject Line Back-to-School Collection.

1:20 Very legitimate, uh, Mystery Science. Uh, and then the URL from which the email came from is bot at mysterscience.

1:31 com. It’s a branded email address. Um, it matches with the brand that sent us the email. So this does speak to its legitimacy.

1:41 Now, worth noting, not all brands are going to have a branded email address. Uh, for example, Be The Page SEO did not have a branded email address when we first got going, it was BeThePageSEO at gmail.com so just be mindful of that.

1:57 If you are familiar with the brand it may look a little bit different. But what we’re looking for is the branding within that you are or that email address in some capacity.

2:08 If we scroll down, we can see here this should be a logo, but it’s not. But if we hover over this, a URL does populate down here in the left hand corner of our window.

2:22 So if you look where I’m highlighting here as I hover over that, you’ll see https://mysteryscience.com. This tells me that if I click on that link, it is going to take me to this URL or which is https://mysteryscience.com.

2:44 The forward slash, click, blah, blah, blah. After that, that’s a tracking parameter that’s used. You may see it sometimes as a UTM, um, or something else of that nature.

2:56 For emails like this that are sent from a brand, you’re going to have some type of tracking parameter in that URL, uh, so that they can see which links were clicked on, what links weren’t clicked on.

3:10 And it just kind of helps them collect data to build out better emails in the long run. So if you’re a business and you’re not tracking, you should be tracking.

3:21 Um, so if we scroll down and we hover over the other URLs here, uh, we can see it’s also https://mysteryscience.com.

3:29 The button here is also https://mysteryscience.com. Help center is https://support.mysteryscience.com, which is still branded. And then we have that last URL here at the end, uh, which is just https://mysteryscience.com.

3:44 So this, this is a legitimate website, we’ve got the unsubscribe, privacy, so on and so forth. It’s very legitimate and we’re able to discern that.

3:53 If we scroll down here to a different email, the subject line, very telling right away. XIL forward slash daily shipment review 25.21 forward slash forward slash 07, 619 PM Morgan.

4:10 Tracy.Theresa. Well, first and foremost, we’re in the United States and we do not date our emails or anything in that capacity like that, with that formatting.

4:19 Um, so that’s red flag right there. And then 6 19 PM, we don’t timestamp our emails in the subject line.

4:27 They’re time stamped for us when we get the email or when we send it and then we have names Morgan, Tracey, Teresa.

4:35 My name is none of those. My husbands name is not any of those. So that’s another red flag for us just immediately right there off the top.

4:47 If we look at the, the email address that the email came from. It’s, um, humming ringing 911 at gmail.com. So this doesn’t match what the emails about.

5:00 This doesn’t match the name of the person that sent the email. So, again, big red flags there for us just to kind of, um, peak our cautiousness in any further into this email.

5:14 If we do click on the PDF that was sent and we do want to know that there was no content sent.

5:20 in this email, only of the PDF. So that’s a huge red flag as well. Like, I wouldn’t even click on this at this point.

5:26 I would just trash it and forget about it. But if we do click on this, which I don’t recommend, we hover.

5:31 We don’t click. Hover. Don’t click. Um, if we do click on it, supposedly it’s from PayPal. Um, and we can see here that it’s not to a person.

5:46 It’s to an email address. Um, there is an urgency. in the content here. You need to get in touch with us for the next 12 hours.

5:56 We need to verify this. We can refund it within the next six hours of reporting. If there’s no response, we’re going to be forced to charge you the full amount, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

6:04 It’s just the urgency around it is very spammy. Um, also, how do they know it wasn’t an unauthorized transaction? You know, did we call?

6:15 Did they receive some type of information? It’s just not making sense. So, um, another identifier is the plus one with the phone number.

6:26 That’s typically going to be an international phone number. That’s not going to be, um, uhm, local number here within the U.S.

6:32 That’s typically only seen with international members. So, as you can see, I mean, there’s other There’s tell-tell signs, you know, team pay pass.

6:40 All, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth. So, it’s just very telling that this is not a legitimate email.

6:48 Um, so, remember, hover over the URL, do not click it. Um, and also check to see the email addresses, uh, from which the emails are coming from.

7:01 Make sure they’re branded. Make sure they make sense. Uh, make sure you check it’s a brand you’re familiar with. And check it out.

7:07 Go to a different tab. Go to a different window. type in, you know, Verizon.com or ATT.com, wherever the most coming from and check the validity of the website as well.

7:21 Um, also those text messages that we get, you know, the pain, the tolls or the United States Postal Service ones.

7:27 You’re not gonna get text messages about those things. Any type of money owed for a bridge toll or freeway highway tolls in the event nature, that’s gonna be sent to you via mail.

7:44 You’ll get that in a legitimate statement that’s owed to you (should be you owe) and then you would go to website to pay the toll or call that number to make that payment.

7:54 Additionally, the United States Postal Service is never going to send you a text message saying that, you know, something happened to a package and transit.

8:03 That’s not gonna happen. Well, you know, if you get something from Amazon and they’re shipping it to you and something happens to that, the shipper is the one that’s actually going to reach out to you to let you know about a damage, a damaged product or something happening within that transit.

8:18 I’ve been getting from point A to point B. So just be mindful of those. You know, if you get any type of text message like that, just delete it, block the number, whatever, however you want to go about it.

8:28 Um, but those aren’t, those are never going to be legitimate. Don’t click on it. Don’t pay an extra $10. Don’t do anything like that.

8:36 Wait for it to come from a legitimate source such as the place where you made that purchase. I hope you found this helpful.

8:42 As always, we at Be The Page do appreciate you. We value you and we thank you for sticking it out with us.

8:48 Have a great day. Bye! Bye.