--- title: How to Spot a Scam Email Now That They Look Real description: Scam emails don't have typos anymore. AI writes them now, so they read perfectly and sound like someone you know. Here's what to look for. image: https://www.inmotionnet.com/hubfs/mohamed_hassan-scam-3933004.jpg --- [Skip to content](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/how-to-spot-a-scam-email-now-that-they-look-real#main-content) [Contact us](https://www.inmotionnet.com/contact) ![](https://www.inmotionnet.com/hs-fs/hubfs/InMotionLogoNEW_RGB%20copy.png?width=600&height=350&name=InMotionLogoNEW_RGB%20copy.png) - [Home](https://www.inmotionnet.com/) - [Contact](https://www.inmotionnet.com/contact) - Client Tools Show submenu for Client Tools - [Client Portal](https://na.myconnectwise.net/v4_6_release/services/system_io/CustomerPortal/Portal.html?company=inmotionnets) - [Payment Portal](https://inmtn.connectboosterportal.com/) Open main navigation Close main navigation - [Home](https://www.inmotionnet.com/) - [Contact](https://www.inmotionnet.com/contact) - Client Tools Show submenu for Client Tools - [Client Portal](https://na.myconnectwise.net/v4_6_release/services/system_io/CustomerPortal/Portal.html?company=inmotionnets) - [Payment Portal](https://inmtn.connectboosterportal.com/) - [Contact us](https://www.inmotionnet.com/contact) Sep 3, 2026, 4:29:59 AM # How to Spot a Scam Email Now That They Look Real [Tricia Tolbert](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/author/tricia-tolbert) Share: [facebook-f icon](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/how-to-spot-a-scam-email-now-that-they-look-real) [linkedin-in icon](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/how-to-spot-a-scam-email-now-that-they-look-real) [Twitter icon](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/how-to-spot-a-scam-email-now-that-they-look-real) [pinterest-p icon](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/link/?url=https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/how-to-spot-a-scam-email-now-that-they-look-real) [envelope icon](mailto:?body=https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/how-to-spot-a-scam-email-now-that-they-look-real) For years, the advice for spotting a scam email was simple: look for bad spelling and clumsy grammar. A real bank or supplier writes properly, the thinking went, so a message full of mistakes was probably fake. It was easy for us to teach, and for a long time it worked. ![mohamed_hassan-scam-3933004](https://www.inmotionnet.com/hs-fs/hubfs/mohamed_hassan-scam-3933004.jpg?width=477&height=277&name=mohamed_hassan-scam-3933004.jpg) Unfortunately, it doesn't work anymore. Scammers now use AI to write their emails, and AI writes cleanly. The typos and awkward phrasing that used to give phishing away are gone, and the messages landing in your team's inbox read as well as anything from a real company. Worse, they can be written to sound like they came from someone you already know. ## Why the old advice stopped working The spelling-and-grammar tell worked because a lot of scammers were writing in a language that wasn't their own, and the mistakes showed. AI took that away. The UK's [National Cyber Security Centre](https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/report/impact-of-ai-on-cyber-threat) says generative AI can now create convincing phishing lures "without the translation, spelling and grammatical mistakes that often reveal phishing." The [FBI](https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2024/PSA241203) says the same: criminals use AI to limit the grammar and spelling errors that used to mark a message as fake, so it reads as believable. That means the one thing most people were trained to look for no longer tells you much. ## Why these emails are so convincing now - **The writing is clean.** A scam email reads like a normal business email, because a machine wrote it in seconds, in whatever tone the attacker asked for. - **It's personal.** Attackers can feed public details about your company into an AI tool, pulled from your website, your team's LinkedIn profiles, or a press release, and get a message tailored to you: the right names, the right job titles, and a believable reason to be in touch. - **There's more of it.** AI makes each message faster to produce, so attackers send far more. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center added a section on AI to its annual report for the first time, tied to more than 22,000 complaints and nearly $893 million in reported losses. These days, the scam email isn't the obvious one anymore. Instead of "Dear customer, your account is suspended," someone in your finance team gets a message that looks like it's from a supplier they really deal with, mentions a real project, and asks to update the bank details for the next invoice. It reads exactly like a real supplier email. The only thing wrong that you can't even see is that the supplier never sent it. ## Your spam filter won't catch them all It's tempting to assume your email security will handle this. It catches a lot, and you should keep it switched on. But a well-written, personalized email that asks a normal-sounding question doesn't always look dangerous to a filter, especially when it carries no obvious bad link or attachment. Both the NCSC and the FBI expect AI to push more of these messages through, which is why the last line of defense is a person who knows what to check. ![geralt-spam-9738039_1920](https://www.inmotionnet.com/hs-fs/hubfs/geralt-spam-9738039_1920.jpg?width=519&height=346&name=geralt-spam-9738039_1920.jpg) ## It's not just email anymore AI has done the same thing to phone calls and texts. The FBI warns that criminals can clone a voice from a short audio clip, enough to leave a voicemail that sounds like your boss or a family member asking for an urgent payment. The same thing that makes AI emails so convincing makes AI phone scams convincing too. The defense is the same: if a call or voicemail asks for money or logins, hang up and call the person back on a number you already have.  Places like your bank will NEVER call you and ask you to confirm who you are - you should always confirm who they are! ## Here are the signs you should still pay attention to If you can't trust how an email is written, look at what it's asking you to do. That's where the real warning signs are, and AI hasn't changed them: - It asks for money, gift cards, or a payment to a new account. - It asks for a login, a verification code, or personal details. - It creates pressure: a deadline, a threat, or a "do this now." - It asks you to change the bank details for an invoice or a supplier. - It comes with a link or attachment you weren't expecting. - The display name looks right, but the actual email address doesn't match it. Every one of these is about what the email is asking for. So the rule to teach your team is simple: when a message is about money, logins, or how you pay someone, slow down before you act. ![rupixen-payment-4334491_1920](https://www.inmotionnet.com/hs-fs/hubfs/rupixen-payment-4334491_1920.jpg?width=548&height=365&name=rupixen-payment-4334491_1920.jpg) ## How to protect your team - **Check money and login requests another way**. If an email asks you to pay a new account or change a supplier's bank details, call the person on a number you already have. Don't reply to the email or use a number it gives you. - **Stop telling staff to watch for bad spelling.** Tell them to look at what the email is asking for, and to slow down when it's about money or logins. - **Make one rule for payment changes:** confirm every change to bank details by phone, even when it's urgent. - **Turn on phishing-resistant MFA or passkeys**, so a stolen password is harder to use even if someone gets tricked. - **Make it easy to report a suspicious email**, and make sure nobody feels silly for checking. - **Remind the team now and then** that scam emails look perfect these days. A quick five-minute chat beats a poster nobody reads **Article used with permission from** [**The Technology Press.**](https://thetechnologypress.com/how-to-spot-a-scam-email-now-that-they-look-real/)  [Email Security](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/tag/email-security), [Phishing](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/tag/phishing), [PhishingScams](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/tag/phishingscams) ## Related posts [Uncategorized](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/tag/uncategorized) ## [Larilyn’s Tip of the Week: Remote Printing at Home](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/2021/03/larilyns-tip-of-the-week-remote-printing-at-home) [Larilyn Holt](https://www.inmotionnet.com/blog/author/larilyn-holt) Mar 17, 2021, 9:00:00 PM This pandemic thing is really starting to grind my gears. Here we are, a year later, and many of us... 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