A good example of a Scam Email

[IWT]

We repeatedly from Members who have received a Scam message or think they might have done so.

The one below is an exact replica of the UK "Royal Mail" template that they use.



It looks sort-of genuine and it implies that the Sender is from His/Her Majesty's Inland Revenue and Customs Service - which is always a worry!!

But look again. No mention of your name, address, reference number.

Now, move your Cursor up to the Sender - it says Royal Mail. Okay. Now move your cursor up to the Royal Mail and adjacent to in order to read the exact email address. See below:



it comes from "[email protected]".

That's your final proof it's a scam. Always do this if in doubt. Sometimes the sender's email is almost right - in this case it might have been something like "royal-mail-abc@info-supportxz"

This is, for UK Members, a very common scam purporting to come from the Inland Revenue or some other real and worrying source, which pushes you to open it and get back to them, pronto. Don't. For the rest of our Members, I'm sure you get the point.

Ian

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Good catch Ian. The usual spelling mistakes in phishing emails are missing here since they're using the template wholesale. I just operate on a state where I'm skeptic of every email I get. Heck, even after placing an Amazon order and getting the order details in email, I question the email (and my shopping habits )

 

[MacInWin]

I'm getting similar messages in Mail from someone spoofing my internet host for a website I run. The message indicates that there is a problem with my payment method and to "click here" to fix it. I don't, as I never click on links like that and I know that my payment method works for the hosting company. But it does look VERY real.

 

[RadDave]

We repeatedly from Members who have received a Scam message or think they might have done so.

The one below is an exact replica of the UK "Royal Mail" template that they use.

View attachment 39167

It looks sort-of genuine and it implies that the Sender is from His/Her Majesty's Inland Revenue and Customs Service - which is always a worry!!

But look again. No mention of your name, address, reference number.

Now, move your Cursor up to the Sender - it says Royal Mail. Okay. Now move your cursor up to the Royal Mail and adjacent to in order to read the exact email address. See below:

View attachment 39168

it comes from "[email protected]".

That's your final proof it's a scam. Always do this if in doubt. Sometimes the sender's email is almost right - in this case it might have been something like "royal-mail-abc@info-supportxz"

This is, for UK Members, a very common scam purporting to come from the Inland Revenue or some other real and worrying source, which pushes you to open it and get back to them, pronto. Don't. For the rest of our Members, I'm sure you get the point.

Ian

Hey Ian - agree with you and the others, scam/phishing emails can look 'real' and 'scary' - I do the same and hover over the areas mentioned - sometimes I'll hit 'reply' and do the same (below an email from my 'junk box' from presumably 'FedEx' but the blue and red boxes added labelled it as a phony phishing attempt).

For 'novices' receiving these types of fraudulent messages, don't respond nor click on ANYTHING - if the email is from a personal place like your bank, credit card companies, insurance providers, Social Security (I could go on and we've gotten phishing attempts from all mentioned), obtain a legitimate phone number (NOT from the scam email but from the company's website or on a card if owned) and call them directly - we've cleared up dozens of phishing issues. Dave

P.S. no I NEVER send out a reply -
.

 

[Rod]

We get a LOT of scam SMS texts like the one attached:


The link is almost believable, the true biller would be Linkt (a road tolling agency) not "link" as in the URL attached but I have an added reason not to believe it, I don't have a Linkt account. Just to make doubly sure I went to the Linkt home page and checked for an account listed under my mob number and as expected they returned a "no such account exists" message.

 

[Alan_B]

For Brits I saw this advice posted online some time ago - how effective it is, I don’t know.

For anyone in the UK who does not yet know or do it yet, all phishing or otherwise suspicious emails should be forwarded to [email protected]. They allegedly trace and block centrally.

More -

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report-phishing

Avoid and report internet scams and phishing

 

[Jimmysb]

For Brits I saw this advice posted online some time ago - how effective it is, I don’t know.

For anyone in the UK who does not yet know or do it yet, all phishing or otherwise suspicious emails should be forwarded to [email protected]. They allegedly trace and block centrally.

More -

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report-phishing

Avoid and report internet scams and phishing

Yep, tried it a few times as both a forward and as an attachment, and they have always bounced for me so I don't bother any more.

 

[Alan_B]

Yep, tried it a few times as both a forward and as an attachment, and they have always bounced for me so I don't bother any more.

I’ve never had messages bounce from the .gov address but at the same time I still receive lots of dodgy emails. The scammers are of course well aware of steps people take to block them and know how to get around such measures. I’ve tried writing filters on my email clients and even set some up on my mail service providers sites. I keep hearing about Spam Assassin but have yet to try it.

 

[Slydude]

Lately, I have gotten texts that follow a similar pattern claiming to be from the US Postal Service. The text claims I have a package waiting at one of their warehouses.

Two things caught my attention: I was not expecting any package then, so that's strike one. Checking the sender's address led to an address similar to [email protected].
The US Postal Service has a .gov address like most other major government agencies.

Later it occurred to me that the postal service does not operate that way. We've had packages before that could not be delivered for one reason or another and our mail carrier has always put an official note in our mailbox indicating where the package could be retrieved.

 

[Rod]

In Australia we have Scam Watch (Home | Scamwatch), a Govt. reporting site for online scams and yes we too get a huge number of fake package post messages from every variation of the true URL (Personal, Business, Enterprise & Government solutions) like aupost, austpost ect. Honestly I dont know how people get fooled by these meesages but I guess it works on volume. Send out 20,000+ SMS and odds are you will get maybe 10 people respond and that's enough to make it worthwhile. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯