An email hoax is a false report about a non-existent possibility often circulated through emails. The promises in such emails often require little efforts on the receiver’s part. Most such hoaxes are recognized by internet filters as spam mail. However, some may still find their way into one’s inbox. The email hoaxes usually do not have the sender’s signature at the end of the text. They also usually have phrases that urge the recipient to send the mail to as many people as possible. In some cases, the hoax emails tell the receiver to take the message seriously and can even use emphatic language such as bolded or capital letters.

Email hoax often contain information that is convincing rather than informing. As such, the authors of the emails often try to appeal to people’s emotions. In addition, the hoaxes are usually lacking in accurate information. Some of the suspicious characteristics of the email hoax are that some purport to have extremely important information, while others contain suspect messages.  Furthermore, the factual claims contained in the emails usually have no published evidence to back them. 

Although not all chain emails can be regarded as hoaxes, email hoaxes usually pass through multiple chains before getting to a receiver. Whereas such emails cannot be automatically dismissed as hoaxes, the receiver should be sceptical about them and only believe the content after verifying the claims therein.  

People should also look out for emails that try different ways to make the content of their messages believable. Hoaxers usually recognise the weak points that they can take advantage in the readers to make them vulnerable. Knowing that most people have reservations about how much information lets out to the general public, hoaxers will seek to exploit this by telling the receiver that the government did not want the general public to access the information contained in the mail. Because the hoaxers also know that people can easily fall prey to information that promises them good health, they are fond of circulating health-related rumors. As such, email receivers should never act on such emails before verifying the accuracy of the information contained therein with medical doctors. 

A good pointer that could indicate whether the email is a hoax or not is through checking whether the email has been exposed by websites that debunk internet hoaxes and urban legends. In some cases, email hoaxes are just a lighter side to life and try to stretch people’s imaginations. They stretch the little truth that is known to people and add their own creativity to create an image that can be simply described as out of this word. A classic example of such was the hoax that claimed that Microsoft owner Bill Gates had entered into a deal with the Pope to purchase the Vatican and by extension the entire Catholic religion. Simply, this was a laughable hoax, which any analytical mind could surmise as having stretched Bill Gate’s capabilities a little too far. Such hoaxes are easy to spot since some ends just do not tie up.

Some email hoaxes are however hard to figure out. Such include those emails that tell the receiver about a circulating virus, the religiosity of a particular prominent person or the birth status of such a person. Some email hoaxes however, pose a greater threat to internet users by tricking them to log in to specific web pages using account details used in sites like EBay. Cyber criminals use such emails.