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Check your spam folder! That’s how a woman learned she won $3 million
The average person receives about 121 emails a day, according to Campaign Monitor. Unfortunately, many of these emails are dreaded spam. Tap or click here to find out how to stop junk text messages and spam for good.
Whether spam emails are from hackers hoping to steal your information or useless companies you’ve accidentally signed up with, sorting through emails can be a pain. But, as one woman in Michigan recently found out, not all spam is worthless.
While most spam emails should be ignored, not all of them are full of hidden dangers. Don’t believe us? Well, not everything in your spam folder is spam, and this lottery winner can prove it.
Here’s the backstory
A Michigan woman did what many of us do when we can’t find an expected email. She looked through her spam folder, only to find out she was now a millionaire. After purchasing a ticket for the Mega Millions lottery through a Facebook ad, she went on her merry way. It turns out she had purchased the winning ticket.
Her jackpot was $3 million. The information was tucked into an email that accidentally went to her spam folder. While this lucky lady was right to follow up on the email that said she’d won millions, that’s typically not the case.
Why you should still be wary of spam emails
We’ve all received emails telling us we’ve won money or have a check for thousands waiting for us. Despite this exceptional story, 99% of the time, those emails contain dangerous links and lead nowhere good.
That’s because hackers create emails designed to get you excited and make you click on links. Those lead to fake websites and prompt you to input personal information or, even worse, banking information so they can steal your hard-earned cash or sell your information on the Dark Web.
Safety Tips
When it comes to checking emails, there are a few safety tips you should always follow to ensure you aren’t being lured into a scam or phishing attack:
- Always check the email for grammatical errors or mispellings, this is a dead giveaway.
- Check the URL. Hackers will often create a very similar URL to the business they are impersonating. Go to the businesses real website and check the link before clicking on it.
- Don’t click on links or download attachments from unsolicited emails.
- Never enter payment information or personal details through unsolicited emails. If you have business to conduct with a company, go to its official website.
For more tips on how to protect yourself from spam, head here.
How to ensure legitimate emails go to the right place
If you are worried about losing an important email or falling for spam, the first step is to ensure real emails are going directly to your inbox and not to the spam folder. The easiest way is to add the sender, who you know is authentic, to your contacts, so they don’t get mislabeled as spam in the future.
Gmail
- Open the email you want to not be marked as spam in the future.
- Hover over the senders name.
- Select add to contacts when the contact card appears.
In the future, if an email gets marked as spam, all you need to do is click not spam when you open it up.
Microsoft Outlook
- Open your junk folder.
- From the toolbar choose Not junk.
- You can also click on the It’s not junk link at the top of the message.
Keep reading
This new warning in Google Drive means a scammer may be after you
Tax season is here – What to expect and easy ways to scan your documents
Tags: email, Gmail, Google, Michigan, Microsoft Outlook, phishing, safety, scam, spam, tax season
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