When it comes to receiving emails, most of us get more from companies and people that we don't know than we do with important information that we actually want to read. Spam or junk mail is just a part of communicating online and there are thousands of companies that are trying to use it to sell us the best hair remover or even to gain confidential information from our computer. This is why you need to be careful what you're opening and avoid subjecting your computer to it as much as possible. There are several ways that you can spot spam.
Read Runbox's article on "What is spam, and how to avoid it?"
One of the most obvious things that you should be looking out for is emails from people that you don't know. They might claim that you're being offered prize money or hope that you open them with a subject line that's very generic. Whether you're applying for a job with a caterer or applying for school, you should make sure that you remember who you're sending emails to. This will make it easier to recognize foreign addresses when they come in. Some people choose to set the privacy setting on their email account so that only addresses that are in their address book go to the inbox.
Check the subject of the email. If it's advertising for pump parts and repairs (look to Abba Parts for service types); or asking you for money than you can likely assume that it's not an email from one of your friends but instead a company. You should also be weary of emails from your friend's and family's accounts that might have suspicious subject lines. It is quite common for spammers to hack into people's emails and send out messages to their entire contact list. They will send out as many as possible before they are detected and the password is changes.
Look for misspellings and sentences that look like they might have been written by someone who does not speak English that well. Many of the ads that come through advertising a vape store (Vapor Kings for example) or for a new miracle cure are created entirely by computer programs or by people halfway around the world. This sometimes means that the message gets lost a little in translation and might not end up making too much sense.
The last thing that you should be looking out for are attachments that come with a message or links that will bring you to other pages. This is where an email that's trying to sell you paintings could turn into a serious virus that could cripple your computer system. Never open anything attached to a message that seems at all suspicious.
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