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Their e-mail is in a strange font.
Parent. Parents love size-fourteen blue Verdana.
Their e-mail is from a weird address.
Parent. Your mom’s e-mail address is kathy_at_the_cottage1958@verizon.net.
Their e-mail congratulates you on winning a five-thousand-dollar voucher to CVS.
Scammer. As forwarded by your mother, asking if it’s a scam.
They reply to your latest Instagram post with “Get in touch.”
Parent. Scammers aren’t quite so blunt.
They try to add you on Facebook even though you don’t have any friends in common.
Parent. You don’t have any friends in common.
They send you a zip file containing forty-five photos of their recent trip to Portugal.
Scammer. Parents send way more photos than that.
They want to know your bank-account balance.
Parent. They want to make sure you’re doing O.K., financially.
They want to know the phone number of the hotel you’ll be staying at, even though you’ll have your cell phone with you the entire time.
Parent. Scammers aren’t interested in this information.
They want to know how you’re doing and if everything’s O.K. with you.
Scammer. Parents aren’t interested in this information.
Their e-mail has no subject line.
Parent. Scammers know how to write a subject line.
Their social-media account has no profile pic.
Parent. Scammers know how to upload a profile pic.
There’s no context whatsoever for their really long text thread that you have to read in its entirety to figure out that a family friend will be in town next weekend for dinner.
Scammer, doing an excellent imitation of a parent.
Their e-mail contains weird attachments.
Parent. They want you to help them sign a PDF, even though there’s no way you can do that for them.
Their e-mail contains the hyperlinked phrase “You WON’T believe what you SEE.”
Parent. They want you to watch a TED talk on the importance of sleep.
Their e-mail mentions people you’ve never heard of as if you know them intimately.
Parent. You really do have a third cousin named Rhoda.
They leave an alarmist voice mail reminding you that you owe back taxes to the I.R.S.
Parent. You really do owe back taxes to the I.R.S.
Their whole e-mail is just one long subject line with nothing beneath.
Parent. What is that?
They offer to send you large sums of money if you wire fifty dollars to help them unlock their bank account.
Scammer. Just making sure you’re paying attention.
Their e-mail’s subject line just says “URGENT” in all caps.
Parent. Something about a PDF again.
They text something cryptic, like “Did you get the package?”
This one could go either way.
They want to know your Netflix password.
Parent. They want to watch the new season of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” even though you’ve explained to them that they have their own Netflix account and that the new season isn’t out yet.
They’re writing to see whether you’d be interested in participating in a money-making scheme.
Parent. Again, they want to make sure you’re solvent.
They send you an e-mail that just stops mid-sentence, as if it was sent prematurely.
We both know the answer to this one. ♦
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