Power Up Wealth podcast – Episode 102 – Clearing Out the Clutter
James Derrick 0:00
While most emails and text messages are safe, carefully crafted, scams are getting more sophisticated and more difficult to recognize. I’m James Derrick, President of Smedley Financial. Today, we’ll be talking with Brandi Romero about concrete steps to protect your privacy and declutter your inbox.
Shane Thomas 0:23
Welcome to the SFS Power Up Wealth podcast where we provide impactful insight and expert opinions on timeless financial principles and timely investment topics, preparing you to make smarter decisions with your money.
James Derrick 0:40
Brandi, thank you for joining me today.
Brandi Romero 0:41
Thanks for having me, James.
James Derrick 0:43
Brandi is a Client Service Specialist at Smedley Financial Services. You recently wrote an article about clearing out the clutter in email, but I also think there’s a lot of lessons in here that apply to email and text messages that could be helpful to everybody.
Brandi Romero 0:56
Absolutely.
James Derrick 0:58
And so let’s jump right in. I just saw an email this morning in my inbox, supposedly from a legitimate company that we use. There was one red flag, and I didn’t click on it.
Brandi Romero 1:09
Good.
James Derrick 1:09
But I think this happens to everybody.
Brandi Romero 1:11
It does. It’s not just one genre of person. It’s everyone who has email, text, anything that you can think of that somebody would have some sort of personal information of yours, so you’ve really got to protect all of it all at the same time.
James Derrick 1:25
Yeah, and the scary thing is, is that you just have to make one mistake.
Brandi Romero 1:29
Absolutely. All it takes is one click.
James Derrick 1:30
You could get it right 10,000 times in a row, and then make one mistake.
Brandi Romero 1:34
And just make that one mistake, and then it’s a lot of cleanup in the end, and we can help you with that, but it really is just very important to pay attention to what you’re looking at, what you’re clicking on, and who you’re talking to, and giving your information to.
James Derrick 1:56
Yeah, and it’s not uncommon, when you open up your inbox, you might be like, Oh, I’ve got 40 messages to read. Or maybe it’s even worse, some people might be 100 messages I need to read. And so if you can declutter first, then you can spend the time on things that look legitimate or suspicious. So let’s talk about decluttering first.
Brandi Romero 2:09
Yeah, I have a few quick tips to declutter. One you want to try to get a fresh start in your email. If you’ve got an old email address that you’ve been using for sending that spam to keep that. Get a new email address, start sending everything to that new email address. That’s the easiest way to declutter anything. If you want to keep your old email, what you can do is go through and unsubscribe to anything that you don’t want in your inbox coming in.
James Derrick 2:36
I have a little rule of thumb that I follow, which is, if it looks like a company that I’m familiar with, you know, something maybe I subscribe to, then I will click the unsubscribe at the bottom. But if it’s a company that I’ve never heard of, I don’t even dare click unsubscribe. I’ll just right click and.
Brandi Romero 2:51
Send it on to the junk box.
James Derrick 2:53
Send it to the junk box, block the sender or that kind of thing. And if it actually looks like phishing, you can oftentimes, right click and mark it as an attempt at phishing. Phishing would be they’re trying to get you to share some information. So this is a very dangerous level of email, not just junk mail, but a dangerous email.
Brandi Romero 3:13
Yes, you definitely want to do that. Block them, report them, all of that. Great tips to cleaning out your inbox.
James Derrick 3:20
So let’s talk about looking for a red flag. Let’s say that we’re going through our inbox and there’s something that looks important.
Brandi Romero 3:27
Yeah. So some of the ways that these scammers are going to try to get you, they’re going to present a sense of urgency. They’re going to put links in these attachments or emails to you. You’re going to see some spelling errors or maybe some odd language in these emails, they’re also going to be asking for all of your personal information, so just be aware of what you’re looking at again. Hover if you can to see who the sender is. Like James mentioned, if it’s somebody that you work with and you don’t want to receive those emails anymore, unsubscribe, if not, block them and send them away.
James Derrick 4:02
Okay, we got to drill down on a few of these. That was a fantastic list. Let’s talk about hovering first of all. Explain what you mean by hover for people, so that they can picture it in their minds.
Brandi Romero 4:12
When you’re at your computer. Let’s start with there. You’ve got your mouse, you’re going to hover over that email address that the sender has sent you that email from. If it’s not somebody that you know, or if they’re spelling mistakes, or if it’s a company that you have worked with in the past, and maybe there’s a spelling error in that email that’s going to be a phishing scam. That’s hovering so you’re going to hover over it. Instead of clicking on anything. It should bring up a URL, and you can see exactly who the sender is.
James Derrick 4:38
So it could say that it’s coming from a financial institution that and maybe, maybe it’s your credit card company. And it says this is from your credit card company. But then when you hover over the link or the email address.
Brandi Romero 4:50
It’s not them.
James Derrick 4:51
It’s somebody else, some random name or number or combination of both.
Brandi Romero 4:57
Yeah.
James Derrick 4:57
You’re like, Oh, this is not my credit card company.
Brandi Romero 5:00
Yes. So yes, a lot of the times when I’m hovering over an email that I get, it will say it came from, you know, a Gmail account or something like that. And really, this is a big business. They don’t use personal email accounts to send out information to you. So that’s a key indicator that that’s probably not a good email for you to click on.
James Derrick 5:20
Yeah, okay. One of these is spelling errors. Now I will say this used to be a dead giveaway spelling errors. They’re getting a little bit better, though.
Brandi Romero 5:29
They are getting better. They’re using a lot of AI technology to generate these emails for us so that they look very legitimate.
James Derrick 5:36
But I think if you slow down, there might be some gramatical errors in there that still will be a good clue.
Brandi Romero 5:43
Absolutely. Slow down. Read, read, read. If you’re not expecting that email and it’s saying something important and it’s got the urgency in there, really pay attention, because they are getting really good at disguising these emails to make it look official and like you need to do something.
James Derrick 6:00
Okay, so let’s say that it does not have any of these red flags so far, the you know, you it looks like a legitimate email address when you see who it came from. It looks like it’s coming from your credit card company we’ll just say, for example, you don’t see any spelling errors, and it says that you’ve got this big old payment that’s gone through on your credit card, click here you know to confirm or deny you know this transaction.
Brandi Romero 6:27
Yeah.
James Derrick 6:28
What would you do there?
Brandi Romero 6:30
So again, I’m going to hover over any link that they attach to see if it’s a legitimate link.
James Derrick 6:35
And it’ll show you like down low on the screen.
Brandi Romero 6:38
Yep.
James Derrick 6:38
It will show you where you would go if you did click.
Brandi Romero 6:41
Yep, and you can read that, and it will tell you exactly where it’s going to take you before you even go there, most of the time, you’ll see it’s nothing that you recognize. It has nothing to do with the company that you’re trying to deal with. So that’s a key indicator. So hover over any links, and then my rule of thumb is just pick up the phone and call that person. So if your credit card or financial financial institution are reaching out to you saying that you’ve got a payment due and you know that you’ve got something set up on auto pay or it has been paid, give them a call. Talk to your advisor, talk to your bank representative, whoever you’re working with, and just ask them if it’s legitimate.
James Derrick 7:21
Yeah, that’s great advice. You could also just log in, but not through their link.
Brandi Romero 7:26
Correct.
James Derrick 7:26
But through the link that you always use.
Brandi Romero 7:29
Yeah.
James Derrick 7:30
The way that you typically get there, and then you could confirm that way, and then you don’t have to stress out about whether it was a legit email or not. I mean, better safe than sorry.
Brandi Romero 7:38
Yep. And if you have your multi factor authentication set up, you should be getting notifications if anyone’s trying to log into your accounts at that time as well, and that would be another key indicator that something might be happening.
James Derrick 7:49
Yeah. And even though it’s a real pain to have, like a message sent to your phone or that kind of thing, we always recommend it.
Brandi Romero 7:56
Absolutely.
James Derrick 7:57
Great advice. Thank you for coming in.
Brandi Romero 7:59
Thanks.
Shane Thomas 8:05
Thank you for joining the Power Up Wealth podcast. Smedley Financial is located at 102 S 200 E Ste 100 in Salt Lake City, UT 84111. Call us today at 800-748-4788. You can also find us on the web at Smedleyfinancial.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The views expressed are Smedley Financials and should not be construed directly or indirectly as an offer to buy or sell any securities or services mentioned herein. Investing is subject to risks, including loss of principal invested. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. No strategy can assure a profit nor protect against loss. Please note that individual situations can vary. Therefore, the information should only be relied upon when coordinated with individual professional advice. Securities offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Smedley Financial Services, Inc.® Osaic Wealth is separately owned, and other entities and/or marketing names, products, or services referenced here are independent of Osaic Wealth.
