Check your inbox. The next email scam is likely waiting for another victim. Don’t open it.
John Joyce, CEO of CRS Technology Consultants, recently shared a few tips with Gulf Coast News viewers. During the Tech Bytes segment, titled “Protecting against email scams,” John notes that emails arrive at a rapid pace.
“It’s all day, every day,” John says.
Many media reports estimate that the average person receives 120 emails per day. Individuals who regularly use email for business, though, likely receive many more… and this doesn’t even include messages sent through Microsoft Teams, Slack, Facebook Messenger or text.
One moment of weakness or an accidental click can put your personal and professional digital livelihood – as well as your business – at risk. Scammers use email to illegally access data files, bank accounts, social media profiles and more.
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Email Spam vs. Email Scam
Many media outlets and tech organizations have reported on the origins of email. Microsoft notes that a computer programmer named Raymond Tomlinson sent that first email back in 1971. That same article notes a marketing manager named Gary Thuerk became known as “the father of spam” when he used email in 1978 to advertise a new computer model. His message was just telemarketing – the same stuff we always found in our mailboxes, but digitally.
“Basically, telemarketing moved to email,” John says. “A decade or so later, unfortunately, the bad guys got hip to it as well and said, ‘Wait a minute, if we can sell a widget to someone through email, we can pretend to sell them that widget as well and take their money.”
And that’s what has been happening for several decades.
In the 1990s, email users saw a transition from spam to scams. Those unsolicited emails were no longer just trying to sell us products we didn’t need… they were trying to capture our personal data and assets.
The Nigerian prince email was probably the defining moment for scams. The sender claimed to have a big investment or inheritance, but needed your bank account numbers to deposit the funds. Norton calls the Nigerian prince scam “one of the oldest tricks in the book.” The “prince” had no money to send, of course. We look back and question how people could be so gullible… but they were, and still are. Variations of this scam are still in existence today. Remember all those texts in 2025 about unpaid toll invoices? Scammers kept sending those texts because people kept sending them money – it worked.
Today’s Common Email Scams
“You may feel like scams are everywhere, and you’re right,” according to a CNET article published in 2025. “Between unsolicited text messages about unpaid toll and traffic tickets and messages about packages you never ordered, scammers are as persistent as ever and are getting smarter about how they get your money and personal data. With the use of artificial intelligence, spotting these scams has become more difficult.”
A CNET survey found that 96% of Americans receive at least one scam message via email, phone call or text each week.
John notes a common email scam arriving in inboxes – personal email and work email – appears to be sent by Microsoft, Google or Amazon. This is a classic case of “bad guys impersonating the good guys.”
“It’s not uncommon to get an email from Microsoft,” John says. “The bad guys will actually send you an email that says ‘We’ve detected suspicious behavior on your account. Click here to reset your password.’ That sounds like it’s Microsoft protecting you, when actually it’s the bad guys taking action to try to get into your account.”
John encourages email users to pause and think twice before clicking. If a deal from a favorite brand seems too good to be true, it probably is. Oftentimes, scammers use limited-time offers that prompt their targets to act impulsively.
“We’re all trained for that call to action,” he says. “We’re predisposed with ‘I have to do something with this.’ The bad guys know that. They catch us in the middle of a thousand other things. They know the busier we are, the less we pay attention to the details.”
Those tell-tale signs of a scam, however, aren’t as evident thanks to artificial intelligence. Years ago, poor grammar was a strong indication that an email wasn’t authentic. AI helped them write better English. Another sign was logos or formatting that didn’t quite match. AI improved that, too.
“They can make these emails so convincing and the grammar is spot on and the logos are just right,” John says. “They can then take an AI-generated version of real webpages that look exactly like the real ones, except that where you’re putting your information is right into their back pocket.”
One common email scam continually plaguing businesses is one in which messages appear to come from the company president or CEO. The email may contain the boss’ name, email signature and company logo, a mirror image of any other email. Scam emails often ask employees to purchase gift cards or pay invoices.
“You’re suddenly walking the bad guy right through the door and now they’ve got your private information and access to your banks,” John says. “So much stuff is in your digital fingerprint that they can take in an instant.”
Preventing Email Scams
Millions of people fall victim to email scams each year, costing individuals and businesses billions of dollars in losses.
One challenge with businesses is that one person’s mistake opening a scam email or clicking a malicious link can impact all employees. It can, in fact, bring down an entire company.
“Normally hidden in the details is the tell – is this too good to be true, is this an email that I was expecting, is it literally from the person that it looks like it came from, but they got compromised,” John says. “We see these chains of attack where it bounces person to person to person. It’s dangerous.”
John’s tips include the following:
- Delete suspicious messages; if it’s authentic, the sender will probably follow up with an email or call
- Hover over links or a sender’s name to tell whether an email is authentic
- Update software programs when prompted; Vital security patches counteract the latest scams
- Pause before you click; Be skeptical of every message
- Remember – you’re only going to get rich by purchasing a lottery ticket, not through email
“Always slow down to speed up,” John urges. Trust nothing. If you didn’t expect it, ignore it. They’ll reach out again.”
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