One increasingly inescapable fact of modern life is fielding endless attempts to scam you—to get your financial details, to spoof your identity, or even to engage you in an improbable romance scam. Scam texts and emails are so ubiquitous, they have become almost invisible.
This is a problem, because you’re most vulnerable when your guard is down—that’s one reason why 15% of Americans say someone in their household has fallen for a scam (and 8% admit they have fallen for one themselves). Spotting scam texts and emails is often pretty easy, but scammers can be extremely good at replicating the look and feel of bank or government emails, and otherwise making their attempts to fleece you look official and plausible.
But no matter how well they fake the graphics, spoof the emails, and mask the hyperlinks, there are often obvious clues that you’re being scammed. Here are seven of the grammatical “tells” common in scam communications, from texts to emails.
Generally poor grammar
The most obvious “tell” in many scam emails and texts is simply poor grammar throughout—official corporate or government outreach will usually be written in grammatically correct English, so anything supposedly “official” that reads like it was output via Google translate is an automatic red flag.
In some cases, poor grammar can be an intentional technique. There’s speculation that poor grammar is used to weed out people who are paying attention—if you notice the poor grammar, you’re too smart for the scammers to bother with. But this isn’t always the case—sometimes scam emails are poorly written for the most obvious reason: The people writing them simply aren’t very good at writing coherently in English. Either way, if you’re having trouble following what the text or email is even saying, it’s a possible sign you’re dealing with someone who isn’t who they claim to be.
The phrase “would you kindly”
The word “kindly” in an email or text asking you to take an action or click a link is a common sign that you’re dealing with a scammer, as it’s a sign that the person behind the text lives overseas. “Kindly” is often used in other areas of the world (in India, for example) in sentences where Americans would use the word “please.” While “kindly” isn’t grammatically wrong, per se, it’s unusual for an American to use it, especially if it’s combined with the phrase like “do the needful.” Of course, just because an email or text was written by someone who speaks English in another country and has different colloquialisms doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a scam—unless they’re trying to convince you that the message is coming from an American company, government agency, or a fellow citizen.
Misplaced punctuation and capitaliation
Another grammar “tell” that gives away the scam lies in punctuation and capitalization. Incorrectly capitalized words are a common sign that the text has been picked up from a scam template that’s been circulated and reworked to fit the specific details of this particular scam. And punctuation (commas, periods, quote marks, etc) that shows up in the wrong spots—or is missing altogether—is another red flag that indicates you might be reading a scam text or email. While it’s true that people sometimes mess up punctuation and capitalization when they’re typing in a hurry, ask yourself if it’s plausible that the IRS agent claiming you have to send the U.S. government $500 in Apple gift cards to pay a fine would be in such a rush.
Another sign of a scam message? Putting the dollar sign in the wrong place. In the U.S., it’s convention to put the dollar sign before the numerals, but in many countries it’s convention to put the currency symbol after—so seeing 500$ instead of $500 is a clue that you should at least dig a little deeper before buying those gift cards.
Calling you “dear” in an official email
Scam texts and email often use a generic phrase instead of your actual name, because they’re only pretending to be your bank or other entity that should really know who you are. They also frequently use the word “dear” in affectionate phrases like “My dear” instead of your name. This is often used to establish a sense of intimacy (especially if it’s a romance scam), but is also often a sign that the writer speaks English as a second language. It’s not incorrect (your grandmother probably calls you “my dear” sometimes), but it’s contextually inappropriate in an email that’s supposed to be serious business.
Saying “datebook” instead of “calendar”
Other frequently mixed-up words that are a good clue the email or text was composed by someone living overseas (and thus unlikely to be emailing you from your local police department demanding you pay traffic tickets using Bitcoin) include “calendar” and “schedule.” Some countries use words like “diary” or “datebook” instead of calendar, but that’s unusual in the U.S., so that’s a clue that you should reread the email or text and look for further clues that it’s a scam.
Missing words
Many scam messages are sent by people who don’t actually speak or understand English fluently, and thus missing words are easily overlooked—especially what are known as “function words.” Function words link other words to give sentences structure and meaning, and scam messages often leave them out at crucial spots that can be easy to overlook, creating phrases like “Contact main office” (missing “the”) that can seem okay if you’re reading quickly, but start sounding odd if you pause for a moment.
Religious references
A trick many scammers use in a wide variety of situations is to play on people’s faith and piety by sprinkling references to god and specific religions into their messages. As with use of words like “dear,” this is intended to bypass your defenses by establishing that they must be a “good person” if they share your beliefs or are performatively spiritual.
Again, mentioning religion or faith in an email isn’t in and of itself a red flag—it depends on context. An email from your pastor that references god is totally normal. An email from the local Lottery Commission informing you that Bill Gates picked your email to win a $10 million probably shouldn’t include references to church in every other sentence.
