I get spam emails every day - who doesn't?  Most arrive in my Spam folder.  Plus I get spam emails that arrive in my In folder or Trash folder.

I check all three folders every day because some of my clients send out so much email they have been labeled as spammers.

Some spammers are becoming superb at wording subject lines to maximize the chance of my opening the message and at least reading the top lines.

I hate not opening these messages for fear of missing a gig or note I really do want.  But I hate to open questionable messages because even opening some of them will lauch cookies and other nastiness into my computer.  (White html on a white background, etc, can easily manage the trick.)

Today I came up with a way of prescreening questionable emails without actually opening them.  You are probably already onto this trick but just in case.....

Step 1   If the message is in your Trash or Spam folders, you need to move it to another folder.  I move it to my Inbox folder.

Step 2   Find the words in the subject line that are unusual in comparison to the words in most of the emails in your folders.  Notary would not be a good word to select.  Appointment would be a good word: we notaries think in terms of appointments: most clients think they can walk in to an office or schedule a loan signing with us.

Step 3   Type the unusual words into the Search field.  Hit the search mail button.

Step 4   A screen of email messages with your selected words will apear in chronological order with most recent on top.  So the suspicious message will appear first or close to it.

Step 5   You can read the first few sentences of the message on the Search Results screen.  It is super easy to tell a "real" email message from spam by reading these lines.

Now you know whether to open the message or check it as Spam and delete it.

I realize that all the marketers say we should have an email address that is dedicated to our website domain names.  Notary@ProfessionalNotary.com  for example.  But I have had ProfessionalNotary@yahoo for a zillion years.  It is all over the internet - thanks to my hard work.  I don't dare change it.

Best of luck in your notary business, LauraV