"It must be tough to be a financial institution in 2009," says DJ Waldow in a post at the Email Experience Council blog. "I'm not referring to the current financial crisis. I'm talking about trying to convince consumers that the email you are sending is legitimate (not spam, not phishing)."

Which might explain, perhaps, the pre-header of an email he recently received from his mortgage lender: We are currently asking our customers to rate their recent experience with Bank of America. No personal or financial information is required. This is NOT spam.

Waldow isn't sure whether that last sentence was a good idea. After all, when people see the words "this is not spam," they often assume "this is spam."

But in the case of Bank of America, with a subscriber list accustomed to spam from criminals who routinely pose as banks, the pre-header might make sense, he notes. "While I may have historically marked this as spam out of habit," says Waldow, "I didn't this time. … Was it because they told me the email was NOT spam? Who knows?"

Conversely, distracting the recipient from the true purpose of the message could be a mistake. "Bank of America wants me to complete the survey," he says, "but I may be caught up on the fact that this email is or is NOT spam."

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