Out of 20 AARP Emails, 1 Flagged 'DANGEROUS' Why?

[KellytheBelly]

What does it mean when 1 out of 20 AARP emails is flagged as, 'DANGEROUS.'

This email was not in spam, it was in my regular inbox. Truly, I am curious as to what triggers this type of alert. What made this (one) email, 'Dangerous?' Let's say this email was 'Dangerous' (as the email indicates), but not flagged, or triggered, what can happen? Should this be a concern? An invisible threat. The great unknown! Strange happenings, or not. Boy oh boy, this is a 🥒. 

Any clarity, or insight, would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[EricC28201]

Hiya @KellytheBelly , a web search on "Mission of The Sacred Heart" returns numerous hits that are a 'Near Miss' organization names.  Maybe that has something to do with why it got flagged (Scam potential).

Analogous to the word choice algorithm watching over these posts:

**bleep** - A male chicken over one year of age; also called **bleep** bird and old rooster. (straight from a dictionary)

Cockerel - A male chicken under one year of age; also called young rooster.

...another example of why the current notion of A.I. is a misnomer

...never stop exercising your brain.

[Therapist4u]

HI Kelly

That is strange...I thought only we could initiate flagging something ....such as spam or as malicious...

as I do often lately ...but only as a 'report' straight to a Moderator...

if this is from AARP...they need to answer publicly...here to you...so we all know!

If this message didn't come from them...it could be from a malicious source!

[KellytheBelly]

It was from AARP! I am subscribed to: https://community.aarp.org/t5/Rock-N-Roll/Outer-Space/m-p/2495249/highlight/true#M233267 (because I recently posted something there), thus received an email notification when this person posted something 'new.' I was going through other AARP subscription emails when I came across this one, with a red banner and 'DANGEROUS' at the top. So, out of all of the emails that came from the same place, 'AARP Rock N Roll'/AARP, why is this one marked, 'DANGEROUS?' If you do not have an answer for me, that's okay. You've most definitely summarized it. I'm just glad the email people caught it. 

[Underbat · Accepted solution]

Hey @Therapist4u and @KellytheBelly 

The "flag" came from your mail client. I assume you are using gmail or similar?

Most modern mail programs use learning algorithms to filter out spam. They flag "potentially dangerous" based on patterns - which includes recent activity - so that the recipient - a human being - can decide, instead of either rejecting the mail or placing the mail in the junk folder.

Unfortunately spammers always try to get around the spam filtering agents.

The message was not marked dangerous by AARP, and in this case might have merely triggered an alert based on rules Google and others don't reveal (obviously, because the spammers and scammers will try to outfox them)

If you look at the message header showing what email domain and sender it came from, you will see it's legitimate.

For more explanations, go here:

Most Common Gmail Spam Notifications 

Gmail: “This Message Seems Dangerous” 

In any case - never click on links that look suspicious

Hope this helps.

Stay safe.

[KellytheBelly]

I get it, but thought it was strange that out of all the emails from AARP, this one was flagged. It was a bunch of them, all together. Weird. Thanks for the information! Hope you have a great weekend. 🙂