Seen as: Verify your account / Your account has been locked
Scam type(s): Phishing / Credit card stealer.
Hello everyone, this is a post going over the new scam floating around on tumblr where users are receiving DM's (and asks!) containing messages similar to the following:
Your Tumblr account has been temporarily locked due to security measures. Verify your account within 24 hours to stop permanent suspension.
Suspicious activity has been detected on your account! Our team has begun an investigation. To continue using your account, you must complete user verification.
Visual examples of this can be seen here:
Image 1 taken from this post, image 2 taken from this one.
Do note that [tumblr], nor its staff, will ever contact users via asks, comments, or direct messages with issues related to your account.
[tumblr] will only contact you via their official email account that ends in tumblr.com.
[tumblr] will never ask you for money to 'verify' your account, to reactivate your account, to 'fix an issue', or anything similar to the sort.
[tumblr] will never threaten you that if you don't "pay them money" your information will be sent to the police, FBI, ect and you will be arrested for xyz reason.
[tumblr] does not use Discord. Nor do they use any other website than tumblr.com.
If you are contacted by a user who tries to get you to contact a staff member via 'email', a website, on discord, or on another website, this is 100% a scam. Please report the DM, and block the user immediately.
You can also go a step further and report a post the hacked account has made as: something else > unlawful use > phishing, and explain that it is a hacked account trying to perform the <insert scam type> scam.
Providing screenshots is also always a good idea in these situations as well. :)
Now you may be asking: okay, what does this website take you to?
Is it a copy of tumblr to get you to sign in?
Nope! It's much more sad and.. honestly pathetic than that.
It's a fake AI help bot plus a generic 'there was an error with your account. give us your credit card information now please :)' page.
If you notice- there's nothing that asks for anything related to your tumblr account. It's literally just "give us your credit card and personal information so we can steal your identity- I mean fix the issue."
They also set up a fake 'terms of service' popup as well which.. I'm not even gonna get into that. More or less saying things like 'we need this information to verify your account. This includes your name, address, ect.' One of which includes your government ID btw. NEVER give that to ANYONE for ANY reason.
This is a very.. sad, and pathetic attempt at a scam, but I know that people will unfortunately fall for it.
This is honestly no different than those "you have a package from the UPS click here" or "you owe money from a toll both click here" scams you get in texts, and I would think people would know that- by looking at the URL alone, this is not owned nor operated by [tumblr] in any regard.
Please make sure to share this and help others become aware of scams, the more people who learn about scams, the less likely they are to fall for them. :)
Take care, stay safe, and keep helping others.