How do I determine if this is spam?

Spam, my wife got that last Sunday.

It’s spam. I fell for it and then realized it was spam. I went to the PO and they confirmed it.

And second address is bogus . . . https://malwaretips.com/blogs/usps-posthelpan-com/

It’s totally a spam trying to get you to click that link, and/or confirm your email gets read by an unwise person.

What you can do, if you want to investigate the host of a link without clicking on it, is do a DNS lookup on a trusted site, such as https://www.whatsmydns.net/dns-lookup . In this case, it doesn’t show much, because posthelpan.com is barely registered – only in Brazil and Spain, and with scant info, but it’s clearly NOT USPS.

You can also do a search of the domain name, in which case for this one, we get immediate hits describing the scam, such as: Uncovering the Usps.posthelpan.com Package Delivery Scam on MalwareTips.com , which says in part:

“These official-looking messages claim there is an issue with delivering your package and provide a link to Usps.posthelpan.com, directing victims to enter personal and financial details under the guise of resolving shipping problems. However, the site is not associated with USPS and is merely a scam to harvest users’ sensitive information for criminal purposes.”

Spam/Phishing, 100%
If a package can not be delivered due to address issues, it goes back straight to the sender. They will never ask you to “confirm the address”.

1)
The USPS (and any other company or agency) does not send email from rando free email accounts

2)
The USPS (and any other company or agency) will not direct you to a rando website that is badly disguised as “kinda” official-looking

It’s spam. The post office has an official email, although I don’t know what it is off the top of my head, but it’s not the one you shared above.

1. Are you expecting a delivery? Did you order anything? Yes. Then check with the company that sent it and ask for the tracking number if they haven’t already sent it to you. If not ignore. Worst case its not spam they’ll return to sender with the reason why delivery failed and they can have another go.

2. Web addresses have the main address just before the .com (.org .co etc) in this case posthelpan.com is the primary web address and usps is a sub address (not the correct terms but I hope you get the idea) Fluther could easily create a web address usps.fluther.com which would have as much to do with usps as this. There’s also the spelling of posthelpan.com

3. no actual company uses a @gmail.com address. It so easy to get a custom email address that any company that cant work out how to get one probably couldn’t work out how to post something either

IT’S SPAM!!! I get that one 3 sometimes 4 times a day!!! PLUS…USPS doesn’t send emails telling you that you have undeliverable mail. They return it to the shipper & have them do the work then they get paid twice to deliver your package. When USPS sends a message, it does NOT originate from gmail it comes from their own site address ending in @usps.com I think that the site has a section telling you what to expect from them & what NOT to reply to. I seem to remember a warning on this specific message.

The US government uses .gov addresses. They may direct you to a third party on occasion, but only through an official stream of communication. .com is about the most generic and meaningless suffix there is. Very obviously a scam, one that is banking on the rather high probability that you are expecting a package.

The US government uses .gov addresses.

The official US Postal Service site is usps.com. The top level domains, such as com, gov, edu are not strictly followed.

@Call_Me_Jay – I stand corrected, except that it’s still definitely a scam.

@Smashley Agreed, it is a scam

Thanks, guys. I knew it was spam, but my anxiety about my passport effed with my mind.