Checking the sender of suspicious emails

Most readers will be familiar with advice on checking suspicious emails.  These include looking out for spelling mistakes and unconvincing or missing visual branding. These aren't easy for blind people to check. One very useful check that is easy for both blind and sighted people to do is to check the email address of the sender. The Mail app on your iPhone or iPad will display the name of the sender and not the email address. Although the name is often convincing, many fraudulent emails are sent from email addresses which are obviously neither official company addresses nor the address of a trusted contact. 

For example, I just checked my Junk mail folder for the fake mails that Google managed to spot. One email which gave the sender as the correct name of one of my contacts came from this email address: 

u223804104@utp.edu.pe, which doesn't look at all like an address one of my UK contacts would use.

Another email claiming to come from Volkswagen came from:

xapgexfkspp@asia.us.com, with no mention of Volkswagen in the address. (I made small changes to both of those email addresses). The addresses used to send fraudulent mail often include random sequences of digits and characters. It's also very unlikely that your energy supplier will contact you using a gmail, live, hotmail, or similar email address. Most will use the company's own .com or .co.uk address. If the address looks odd, then it's probably fraudulent. Some more sophisticated fraudsters may have created an email address which is similar to an address that a company might use, perhaps spelling its name incorrectly. If the email address looks OK at first sight but you are still suspicious of the email your next step is to examine the email address more carefully. If you aren't certain, don't take any action on the email and either seek advice from a trusted helper or contact the organisaion another way.

So, how do you check the email address of a sender? It's easy. These instructions are for iPhone and iPad users but similar actions will work on most email systems.

Non-VoiceOver users:

Open the message. 

Tap on the sender's name at the top of the message.

You should now see From: followed by the sender's name.

Tap on the sender's name again.

You will now have a contact sheet on screen which will display the sender's email address. 

Tap Done at top right when you have finished.

For VoiceOver users:

Open the message.

Explore near top centre of the screen for where VoiceOver speaks "From" followed by the name of the sender.

Double tap once and you will hear "from" followed by the sender's name again.

Double tap once more.

You have now opened a contact sheet and VoiceOver will probably be focused on the Done button at top right.

Swipe right a few times past the message, call, video and mail buttons and you should find the sender's email address. It will probably be labelled other.

When you have finished, locate the Done button at top right of thee screen and double tap to close the contact sheet.

Why not take a look at the email addresses from which you receive genuine emails from organisations like your energy supplier; the next time something suspicious arrives you'll be even more confident  to delete it or report it as SPAM after you've checked the email address from which it arrived.

Back to FAQ