Many of the scam emails sent to your mailbox will be automatically detected by your email software and moved to the "spam" folder. However, some of them will end-up in your inbox and need to know how to detect a scam email.
Most of the spam and scam emails are poorly written with multiple typos and spelling errors. This should be the first alarming sign. But few are written by "professional" scamers and might look very well.
As a general rule, ignore any unsolicited offers. Never reply to them.
If however, you think that the email might be ligitimate and you want to investigate its authenticity, then the following hints might help you.
Unsolicited offer : Someone you don't know offers you a job, a large amount of money, or something you don't expect to receive. No, thanks. In general, if it is too beautiful then it is not true.
Check the sender : look at the senders name and email. If the email pretends to come from an institution, google the name of this institution and check the contact details on the official web site. If the email is that of a friend, check if it is already in your contact list and that you have corresponded with this person using that email. This however, not a guaranty of the authenticity of the email. Your friends account might have been recently hacked. Besides, it is not technically difficult to fake the sender's address in an email.
Check the reply email: This is how they may trick you. The senders email looks fine (but may be hacked or faked) but when you click the reply button a different address appears.
Check the other contact details. Example: phone number with area code +229 (Benin) while the sender pretends to be in UK.
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