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How to NOT enquiry (to avoid being seen as spammer)

Email spamming and fraud is trendy nowadays. Each day I get about 30 emails in SPAM / JUNK folder. Most are advertisements for various products, invitation to social networks and adult dating websites, but also such SCAM emails, some of these scam emails are short “I have a business proposal for you, reply me for details“, “I am interested to relocate to your country, can you help me with money?” without using your actual name or your country name, because they are mass mail sent to thousands people, to fool you to reply for details and once you reply, the scammer start addressing with your name to gain confidence.

I received the below email on 19 June 2013. Is it a SCAM / SPAM / mass mail or is a personal enquiry for me?

Occasionally I reply to scam emails, a short an informal reply, asking them details about me, where I live or how do you know me, being curious if they answer…

Note: before replying I did a google search with his email address and I did not saw any mention of scam, but receiving an email mentioning England, Paris and “relocating to my area” while having a website primarily about Singapore housing (although there are few articles about housing in other countries) raised suspicion about where he want to relocate, whenever he knows where I am from (and I am not agent, I do not sell properties).

Property Enquiry


Unfortunately, he replied afterwards mentioning Singapore so I believe that he actually visited my website and could be a legitimate customer (if I were agent), but I mistaken him with a scammer because his email looked really like scam emails, lacking my name, my website URL or anything personal. A note to add: both his emails came in SPAM, I am not sure how Yahoo spam filters were working in 2013, but probably he sent many emails like this so people reported him as spam, or he used same email address previously for marketing.

Sadly, over next years happened a couple more times to receive emails from my customers that do not address with “Hello Teoalida” or anything related to the services I offer, and I ignored them until they sent a second email.


Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 11:19 AM
Subject: Property Enquiry

Hello
I am [name removed], Originally from England and presently living with my family in Paris because of my work, But presently I am planing on relocating to your area because of my retirement and I need to purchase a better home in a quiet residential for my family to move in as soon as possible, Kindly furnish me wth the details of the house or apartment you have avialable for sale and we can take things up from there. Hope to read from you immediately.

Thanks and Have a wonderful day.

[name removed]
General Manager
[company name removed]


Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 11:26 AM

Is this related in any way with my website or… you just SCAM random people, trying to be friends then asking money for a supposed travel to “my country”?
Do you at least know WHERE I LIVE?


He did replied after 2 hours, but his reply landed again in SPAM folder so I did not noticed it until 6 days later.

Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 1:25 PM

Excuse me, I just get your email on the internet and I am willing to relocate to Singapore, I don’t beg for money as I am fine with what I earn., You don’t have to be rude to every1 that send you an email.
Thanks otherwise.


6 days later once I saw his email in SPAM folder, I replied him to apologize for confusing him with a scammer. One day later I sent him another email. 

Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 1:43 AM

I am SORRY for confusing you with a spammer
I am not rude with EVERY one, I always answer formal to emails got in Inbox
Your both emails went in SPAM folder. I get about 30 SPAM emails per day, including a lot of emails with subject Enquiry from China asking me order details and trying to sell me stuff, plus random emails from foreigners regarding lottery winnings, inheritance (pay 200$ shipping cost to get several million dollars), or people contacting for friendship and “relocation in my country” then asking for money to travel, etc (google “419 scam” to see what I am talking about)
I check SPAM folder ONCE PER WEEK and I occasionally reply to some of them to see spammers reaction (second email in SPAM folder too, so sorry for delay in replying).

“Kindly furnish me wth the details of the house or apartment you have avialable for sale”  Although I have a website about real estate, I AM NOT AGENT, so I do not have apartments for sale. – This was more reason for which I though that is a SPAM or some kind of automatic email sent to random email addresses crawled from all real estate websites….

Anyway, now I understand that you know my website, I have a lot of info about public and condo housing available in Singapore, keep reading… and feel free to ask me more specific questions and I will help you!
Even if I am not agent, I studied real estate and I have a lot of knowledge!


Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 2:15 AM

I forgot to say… If you need a real estate agent in Singapore, visit www.condoexpert.sg and tell him that you’re recommended by Teoalida. We are friends

And a suggestion for you: use actual names, AVOID USING “I am planing on relocating to YOUR area” etc… I get tons of emails saying “Dear email user”, “I found on YOUR website”, “I am interested in YOUR product”, I replied to few and so far all were mass email and some fraud attempts .
Say thanks that I replied, NORMAL people would have deleted your email or reported as spam immediately.

READ YOURSELF your first email
How I am supposed to guess that you emailed it TO ME and not an automatic mass email sent to thousand of people hoping that someone will answer?
How I am supposed to guess that you’re a visitor of my website and want to relocate in Singapore? I do no see any “singapore” word, just “your country”, England and Paris.
And my website is NOT ONLY about Singapore. I have pages for 11 countries/regions, and numerous people who do not read enough pages, get fooled regarding where I actually live…

And again, SORRY for treating you like a spammer


Did not heard from him anymore, probably disappointed by my 1st reply.

A suggestion to everyone how to enquiry CORRECTLY, to increase chances for recipients to answer you:

Use a relevant subject, NOT “Hello“, “Good day“, “Proposal” as most of them are “419 scams” and I delete them without opening, the above email “Property Enquiry” was good, as you can see I opened it.

Inside email, write something personal of the recipient, his name, his website title, etc, otherwise you give impression of MASS mail.

Fist way to determine whenever an email is sent to you or a scam sent to many people, is to do a google search with his name or email address, if it is a SCAM email sent to thousands recipients, there is likely for someone else to have reported / posting email to the scams directory websites. But even after few years, the name on email of above person still do not appear to any such website, showing that it was NOT A SCAM, so I choose to respect privacy and not publish his name.

1 comments

  1. if I didnt read second page to see that he actually replied you I was 100% sure that is a spam mail and I had deleted it. bad way to enquiry

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