🎣Real World Example

By being cautious and learning to recognize these common red flags, you can significantly reduce your risk of falling victim to email scams. When in doubt, it's always better to be safe and delete a suspicious message than to risk your personal information.

First Impressions Can Be Deceiving

At first glance, this message appears to come from AAA, claiming you’ve been “awarded a Car Emergency Kit” and urging you to click a link before the “final reminder” expires.

It looks legitimate — but this is how phishing emails gain your trust.

💬 Pro Tip: Be cautious of messages with urgency, offers, or rewards that ask you to click links or provide personal information.

Check Who It Was Sent From

Click the triangle or dropdown arrow next to “to me” in the email header.

This reveals details about the sender and the address the message was sent from.

Examine the Sender's Address

In this example, the sender’s email is:
📧 amysingh@scpt.hyp.nutrientesguba.com

This is not a legitimate AAA address — reputable organizations use their official domains (like @aaa.com).
The long, suspicious domain name is a red flag.

💬 Pro Tip: Always double-check the domain name (the part after @).

If it looks unusual, overly long, or unrelated to the sender’s name or company — it’s likely fake.

Block and Report the Sender

Once you’ve identified a phishing email:

Click the three dots (More) icon in the upper-right corner of the message.

Choose Block “[Sender Name]” or Report spam.

Confirm and Prevent Future Messages

If you select Report spam, Gmail will ask if you also want to block the sender.

Click Yes, Block.

Gmail will automatically move the message to your Spam folder and prevent future emails from that sender from appearing in your inbox.

💬 Pro Tip: Reporting phishing attempts helps Gmail’s system recognize and block similar emails for everyone in the district.

💬 Pro Tip: Never click links or open attachments from unknown senders — even if the message looks official.

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