The Spam Gallery is a series of posts that give examples of spam messages, explaining telltales signs of how they are spam.
This email is one of those that gives you a single option and that is the option that will wreak havoc. Here’s the signs of spam:
- A subject that makes you feel you need to take immediate action. A traffic ticket that is wrongly issued would scare most people into taking action.
- The FROM address is from AOL. It is not likely the LA police department is using AOL for email.
- A strange formatting of an official document. “POLICE AGENCY” is very out of place.
- The time is misformatted (“0:14 AM”).
- Although the date format is DD/MM/YYYY, and that format is used by the military and federal government, it typically is not used in normal communication. It may make the notice seem more official, though.
- Lack of details such as license plate, your name, anything more than “SPEED OVER 90 ZONE”, which in itself doesn’t make any sense.
- The email is marked as being replied to and forwarded, but the email body has no headers from previous recipients.
- The link address does not go to any website that would even make sense for entering a plea.
Don’t rush to click the first link you see if the message freaks you out. There is plenty of time to evaluate a notice. Always check link addresses.