Latest internet scam

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JanR

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This is a new one on me. Fortunately, I ignored it.

In my e-mail inbox, a notice supposedly from Amazon, saying that my “prime member account” has been suspended due to inaccurate account information, and I have “24 hours in which to renew my payment”, or all orders will be cancelled, etc.

It even has a billing report number and report billing ID.

It goes on to say that "We have placed a hold on your Amazon account and all pending orders. We took this action because the billing information you provided did not match the information on file with the card issuer.

Then they say, "to resolve this, please verify now with the billing name, address and telephone number registered to your payment card. If you recently moved, you may need to update this information with the card issuer.

Then they provide a button that says “Update Now”. And if I don’t do it within 24 hours, all pending orders will be cancelled, etc. etc.

Now those of you who’ve read my previous posts know that I don’t shop online. I’ve never had an Amazon account, I don’t do business with Amazon.

There’s nothing to update or verify.

This is a new one, and it looks like they’ve gone to some lengths to make it seem real.

The notice even has what appears to be the amazon logo in the upper right corner.

Finally, they say, “We hope to see you again soon.”

“Again?” They haven’t seen me even once!

This seems weird, but I have been assured it’s a scam.

Anyone else get something like this?
 
I’ve gotten stuff like that purporting to be from banks, businesses etc.
It’s a standard phishing e-mail.
Never click any buttons in those.
 
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It seems that since covid, scam emails have increased tenfold. Not sure why. The worst are those that have the logo and other marks from my bank or credit card. I never click on the links but call them instead, and sure enough they always say no we didn’t send you an email.
 
To op @Dan_Defender @Tis_Bearself. I remember during the Great Recession Identity theft became rampant. Then as the economy healed, it seemed to have lost steam.

We are in a recession right now, so from experience identity theft is becoming rampant again. Again, don’t rely on the media to report anything the media’s function is selling advertising through ratings and not to inform people.

Also, now technology and hacking is both easier and more advanced. I don’t go to sketchy sites, but just going on any forum or Facebook, Twitter…etc…will leave you exposed. Especially, if you are writing things people disagree with. So, I suspect OP has some online presence that is leaving her exposed and not that she is visiting sketchy sites. Again, there is no media activity of online danger and there is no regulation.

Friends and family members of mine that are well to do, don’t have any online activity other than banking and commerce. I’m poor so I feel I have nothing to lose. But just today I had to report my card stolen and ask for a new card with a new number because someone made a forty dollar purchase. Again, I don’t go to sketchy sites.

Remember, the secular world has no bounds and through online activity there is no limit to their malice.
 
OP, what you received is a garden variety phishing email. They are attempting to steal people’s Amazon logins so that they can misuse the accounts. The reason I say ‘garden variety’ is because this is a case where they craft a plausible looking Amazon e-mail, but they don’t target who they send it to. They simply acquire a spamming list of email addresses and send it to everyone on it.

While those like you (without an Amazon account) will easily see through the ruse, they know that a certain percentage of recipients will have an account and that a certain percentage of those people will fall for it and give away their username and password.

Generally, the easiest way to confirm these are fake is to simply mouse-over one of the links and note in the pop-up the true domain name it would send you to (it won’t be amazon.com).

A more insidious and dangerous form is spear phishing, which is the flip side of the coin to the garden variety type. When spear fishing, the bad actors do extensive research on a singular target to craft a highly believable and hard-to-catch phishing e-mail that only goes to one individual. Because the time investment on these is high, they are reserved for big targets. This is how people lose their wiring payments during real estate closings.
 
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Another thing I wanted to note for whoever reads this, I’m not into technology but my college degree was in Econ Stats. But back in the MySpace days when I was first diagnosed scizoaffective I was paranoid about being hacked.

There was a computer science group on MySpace and I was asking how I could train myself in computer science to better protect myself. This was when you could still find nice people online.

I remember a nice fellow telling me not to bother and I took his advice to heart.

1). First, he said, hacking wasn’t cracking like in the movies. It’s not someone with huge intellect entering a bunch of code breaking into your system. Rather, it’s one programmer or a group of programmers who build software and sell it online. The end user may know little to nothing about computers. All he has to do is buy the software and press a button, then consequently steal a bunch of information. So, anyone and everyone can do it.

2). The next thing he said, was if someone wants to hack you they will.
  1. The best thing to do was limit online activity and at that time before WiFi have a computer not connected to the web.
So, at this point it’s probably easier for people to get hacking software, hack someone for financials among other things. Again, we are in recession so people are desperate and again it is so simple, if they can do it they will do it.
 
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Which is precisely why I don’t shop online, don’t put any financial information on the internet from my home computer, and don’t even put it on my home computer when I’m not online.

My bank tries to pressure me, every now and then, to do online banking. I tell them, ixnay. If I can’t go into a bank and personally interact with a live teller, they can just forget about my having an account there. That usually shuts them up – for awhile.

I can’t control what happens to transactions I do in a store or at the bank, or any other business outside of my home computer. I know their computer data is also susceptible to hacking. But i can control what I do on my own computer, and at least there I try to keep sensitive information off of it.

No smart phones, no laptops or tablets – just a land line and a desktop computer with a printer. That’s the extent of it, at home.

And, I never use WiFi, either.

We can only do so much to protect ourselves. If I receive a suspicious e-mail from my ISP, I always call them to ask if they sent it. Nine times out of ten, they didn’t.

Frankly, I feel we are overly-technologized. We have far too much complicated technology that we don’t understand, and try to do far too many things with it.

All we can do is try to stay as safe as possible, pray about it, and hope for the best.
 
I agree with you a hundred percent. Never change your mind on the subject. The secular tech world that wants your information, for whatever reason, will say you are unreasonable but again it’s because it’s in their self interest to spin that narrative.

I myself, don’t bank online. Have a tablet and a laptop, no cell phone other than a track phone for emergencies while driving. But my mistake is online commerce. Again, this is going to be more common so long as unemployment is high and the recession continues. Just like in the Great Recession.

Again, I don’t expect media to report anything. Just giving people heads. When they report it, it will only be after some big sensational theft then it’s too late.

No more online commerce for me.
 
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JanR said:
Which is precisely why I don’t shop online, don’t put any financial information on the internet from my home computer, and don’t even put it on my home computer when I’m not online.
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Actually, a huge number of CC numbers are stolen from physical store purchases. Restaurants with wait staff who take your card to go run it often have a dishonest employee who takes the number. My husband’s card number was stolen by some mechanic at Jiffy Lube. Not doing stuff online doesn’t necessarily protect you.
 
Dh was scanned on his commute. Then they tried to take out money from an atm. We had a limit.
The bank retracted it.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
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JanR:
Which is precisely why I don’t shop online, don’t put any financial information on the internet from my home computer, and don’t even put it on my home computer when I’m not online.
Click to expand...
Actually, a huge number of CC numbers are stolen from physical store purchases. Restaurants with wait staff who take your card to go run it often have a dishonest employee who takes the number. My husband’s card number was stolen by some mechanic at Jiffy Lube. Not doing stuff online doesn’t necessarily protect you.
Click to expand...
No, it doesn’t. But at least one can try to eliminate just one more means by which people can steal by limiting internet activity. A thief is going to steal, regardless of what one does, but one can make it harder for them by taking certain precautions.

I always carefully note charges on my credit card account. I know exactly how much I should owe on the card at any given time, including interest.

I know exactly what my bank balances should be, and I go over my bank statements with a fine-toothed comb. I reconcile them as soon as I get them, and if they don’t balance, I find out why. Usually, it’s some silly arithmetic or recording error, and when I discover it, I feel relieved.

Keeping track of things helps a lot. That way, most scammers can’t successfully fool you. Still, there are clever folks out there who try to find ways of catching you off guard.

Yes, it only takes one dishonest employee. But knowing what should be and what shouldn’t be can help detect fraud quickly and do something about it.

In retail establishments, I try to pay with cash whenever possible, and keep track of the change I’m supposed to get back.
 
I got something purporting to be from Netflix. I do not have a Netflix. I have never had a Netflix.
 
I don’t use ATMs, either. Nor debit cards.

With COVID 19 restrictions, we can still do drive-up banking. There’s still a live person at the other end with whom we can communicate.

Call me old-fashioned, and maybe a little obsessive, but I just feel better about doing things that way.
 
I get these phishing emails quite often. They have tended to look more realistic in the last year or two. I just report them to my email provider as phishing. I seem to get a lot of them claiming to be from Pay Pal, and more recently from “Netflix”.
 
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1Lord1Faith said:
I get these phishing emails quite often. They have tended to look more realistic in the last year or two. I just report them to my email provider as phishing. I seem to get a lot of them claiming to be from Pay Pal, and more recently from “Netflix”.
Click to expand...
Yes, the phishing e-mails are very convincing anymore. It is easy to see why so many get scammed! I click on the details at the top of who sent the e-mail and that is when you can usually tell if it is fake or not because it gives the full e-mail
address of the sender.
 
I got a great phone call the other day. Hackers were trying to get into my account and the person phoning, claiming to be there to stop my internet being disconnected by the govt in half an hour, wanted me to go into the computer and change settings to her guidelines.
She kept repeating my internet would be cut off otherwise.
 
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Also, if you hover over the hyperlink, you can see where it takes you.
 
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