A Web Designer’s Advice on Spotting Email Scams

As a web designer, I see more than my fair share of scam emails — both in my own inbox and in the ones clients forward to me with the subject line: “Is this real?” I’m always happy to help, because even when your gut tells you something’s dodgy, there’s always that flicker of doubt.

Over the years I’ve noticed the scams have become less obvious and more polished. Instead of clumsy promises of riches, they now often look almost like real business. Here are some of the most common ones I’ve come across, and how to spot them before they cause trouble.

Very obvious but worth pointing out early on here, most can be spotted with a simple roll of your cursor over the sender’s email address. Does the text on the right (the real address) match the company it claims to represent?

Here are a few other scams I meet from time to time:

1. The Fake Invoice

Looks official. Has your name, sometimes your company details. It might be for a service you never used — SEO, domain renewals, software licenses. Bigger companies get caught by these because someone in accounts sees “Invoice” and pays it without asking.

It’s especially common with websites, because there are multiple moving parts: web hosting, domain registration, SSL certificates, email services. In Denmark, domains are paid via Punktum.dk (formerly DK Hostmaster). That confusion gives scammers plenty of room to send official-looking “renewals” and hope you just pay them. And ironically, the genuine Punktum.dk invoice often gets missed! A number of websites I’ve ‘known’ have disappeared briefly due to that one not being renewed.

How to spot it:
– If you don’t recognise the supplier, pause.
– Check the sender’s email address — the real one, not the display name.
– Google the invoice wording. Often the exact text shows up on scam warning sites.

2. A Copyright Claim on a Photo Demanding Money

A nasty one. You get an email saying a photo on your site infringes copyright, and unless you pay up quickly, legal action follows. In reality, a genuine copyright complaint usually just asks you to take the image down. Payment demands right out of the gate are a big red flag. Don’t pay. (Unless it involves Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue — which is protected until 2030! And is highly litigious. I’m counting the days.)

3. The “Netflix/Spotify/Your Account” Scam

We’ve all seen these: “Your account has been suspended, click here to reactivate.” Designed to make you panic-click before thinking.

How to spot it:
– Hover over the link before clicking — does it really go to netflix.com, or somewhere else entirely?
– Big companies don’t threaten to delete your account instantly.

4. The Website & SEO ‘Experts’

One especially relevant for small businesses: the “we checked your website” email. It usually claims your site is broken, out of date, or missing out on search traffic. Or the classic: “You are not ranking on page one of Google.”

Think about that for a moment. How many companies can be on page one? How can they guarantee it for everyone? And where did they find your website? Was it on Google perhaps?

How to spot it:
– Generic claims: no mention of your actual site design or what’s “wrong.”
– Grand promises like “page one of Google, guaranteed.”
– Often badly written, with no company address or real contact details.

Watch Out for Once-Reputable Companies

One of the cleverest tricks in the scammer’s playbook is hiding behind once-reputable companies. It feels safe to trust a brand you’ve heard of — and that’s exactly why people get caught out. What used to be reliable can change hands, change policies, or change tactics. A familiar name isn’t always a guarantee of fair play anymore. For legal reasons I can’t…

A Quick Checklist

Before you reply, pay, or click, ask yourself:

• Do I actually use this service or know this person?

• Is the email address really from the company they claim?

• Is the language oddly urgent, flattering, or vague?

• Can I verify it with a quick Google search?

Totally Unconnected, but…
Before signing up for any online service, check Trustpilot. It takes 30 seconds and might save you hours of frustration (and a subscription you didn’t really want). Shutterstock, for example, currently has a Trustpilot score of 1.2 from over 2,600 reviews. Many of those reviews mention how difficult cancellation is — from personal experience ‘difficult’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

And if you’re in Denmark: One.com the nice Danish company isn’t quite what it used to be. It was bought by a UK hedge fund in 2018, and it’s new pricing is interesting. Just something to bear in mind if you’re choosing where to host your site.