#email scam

[dduane]

Nasty and sophisticated scam: BEWARE of this!

That "Pending PayPal Charge" Email Is a Scam — Even Though It Really Came From PayPal

If an email recently landed in your inbox with a subject line like "Pending charge of USD 987.90 for account activation. Questions? Call 855

Don’t get caught off guard by this. It’s quite a slick one.

[scam-alerts]

💪Fighting back💪

Spoofed emails and what to do:

Have you ever gotten an email that says it's from your account?

Does it threaten you with the release of your personal information or naughty photos or videos if you don't do it within 24 hours?

Does this 'hacker' say that they want you to pay them money in bitcoin?

Here's how you can find out who actually sent this email to you!

---

First, open up the email!

In some browsers or email apps, it may already have an option to view the 'real' sender by saying 'show original', but if it doesn't, there are ways in gmail and outlook where you can view the 'message source' or 'header data' to an email which contains all of the fancy information sent to servers regarding who sent what, when, where it went, ect.

Here's an article about email headers explained:

Email Headers Explained: Definition, Components, Role [2024]

Email Headers contain important information and can be useful for improving email deliverability. Learn what they are here.

Now, once you figure out how to access the message source, what you see will probably not bee stuff you recognize, as I mentioned, it's mostly metadata! But there are important things you can find in there tucked away. :)

For example, this email says I sent it to myself:

Then when reading through the header/meta data...Look what I found!

In the Return Path, there is a gmail.com address, and as noted in the above screenshot, it says it was sent from gmail.com. Thus, this email found here must belongs to the scammer!

With that in mind, I copied it, the subject of the email, the header of the email (yes they need alllll of that code, not just some of it!), the body of the email (text that comes under all that code that you see in the email regularly) and reported it here to google. You can report it to outlook too (in app via 'report as phishing email) if it's from a hotmail or outlook account.

When you get threatening emails like this that says it came from your own account, make sure to check out the metadata of the email to find out who it really came from, so you can report it too!

Remember, fighting back not only helps you, it helps others bee safe, too. :)

-Bee

[redbuddi]

SCAM ALERT!!!

This morning I woke up to this email

Scary right? It looks as though all of a sudden I owe over a thousand dollars to some studio I've never heard of. This would be enough to make anyone jump to correct the situation. But if you get this email or ones like it, stay calm, do not call the number, and do not click ANY of the links.

This email is fake. I logged into paypal through normal means and there was no such invoice sent to me. While obviously I didn't call the number or click the links to check for sure, this is most likely a classic phishing scheme. Essentially if you click any of the links or call the number, you will be asked for your login information in a way that looks legitimate, but once they confirm your login they will disconnect you, change your password, and have complete access to your paypal.

tl;dr, If you get the email pictured above or anything similar, delete it immediately. Do NOT call the number it provides. Do NOT click on any of the links it contains.

[kurtzcheimlany]

Jött egy ilyen. Derekasan bevallom, kattintottam a kék gombra, mert ugye ilyenek a reflexek, meglátod, hogy NAV, azt fosás van... még úgy is, hogy 3 éve egy pengőt sem adózom oda (de a szétszakadó, migrénbe hajló fejem sem segít túlzottan). Szerencsére a böngésző visított, ablak becsuk, aztán megnéztem jobban... Szóval na, figyeljetek, azt ne balfaszkodjatok, mint én

[feed-the-roses]

I'd like to share with you the extremely believable and very official email I received today.

Transcription below:

Subject: Letter of Compensation/Settlement

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Office of the Special Representative to the UN.

Head quarters,

Letter Of Compensation / Settlement.

Attn: Beneficiary,

Please bear with us for making this initial contact through email, it is due to the urgency of this notification, since we are unable to reach your telephone line and to officially bring to your notice about your payment file in which you are listed as a beneficiary to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and United Nations Compensation Program of US$10,500,000.00, this Compensation Program is organized Seasonal for victims of internet scams, disasters(earthquakes, hurricane, storm, fire), and elderly one(s) and fund payment delay in which your fund payment has been delayed by some unpatriotic officers.

In view of the above you are advised to reconfirm the information below to facilitate the immediate release of your fund.

1) Your Full Name:

2) Phone Number:

3) Home Address:

4) Profession:

5) Age:

6) Marital Status:

Thank you.

Best Regards,

Ms. Kristalina Georgieva,

Managing Director International Monetary Fund (IMF).

/end transcript

Damn those unpatriotic officers!

Thank goodness they reached me via their very official IMF account, test[@]fuse[.]net. I only wish they'd told me if I was the victim of a scam, disaster, or... elderly one(s).

As an aside, Kristalina Georgieva is a real person, actually associated with IMF. But this is a well-known scam warned about on the official IMF site. You might want to let some less scam-savvy people in your life know about it.

[6ilent-9ufferer]

Oh, boy, another scam email sent to me!

Disgusting alcohol with a disgusting name attached. You won't be celebrating his reign when your benefits get cut, MAGA scum.

[shower-thoughts-last-responder]

These email scams be getting very very clever. If you can't watch the video, essentially, the scammers have set up an email that looks like it's from YouTube asking the user to verify their account and included a link to do this. The text of the link looks like a YouTube link, but the actual page it takes you to is a fake Google login that will steal your Google details. Remember, any string of text can be used to link to any site, for example:

www.youtube.com/

Despite being youtubes actual email address, that'll link will take you to the original video. Stay vigilant and always be suspicious of any online contact you didn't initiate

[reye-chan]

lol someone tried to scam me

got this email today and, as someone who has exactly three things on autopay and uninstalled norton the moment i got my current laptop FAR MORE THAN TWO YEARS AGO, i immediately knew this was sus

so, just to see, i called the number and got the most irritable sounding indian guy ever (why is it always an indian guy? does india have the market cornered on people trying to pull refund scams? step it up, rest of the world ffs)

me: hi i got an email about a norton auto renewal i didn't sign up for

him: okay may i have your invoice number?

me: (rattles it off) and i thought it was strange because i don't use norton

him: well we have a lot of different things under our name...

me: yeah and i don't use them :)))

him: uh so you need to open your computer to fill out the request to stop the payment...

me: i gave you the confirmation number so you should have all the info to cancel it :))

him: uh

me: is this a scam? :D

(he hangs up)

i had my fun haha