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May 20, 2006
EMAIL Hell - The Amazon Fool's Gold Box
Today we got type of Amazon-based phishing EMAIL we haven't seen before. It starts like this:
Congratulations! You have received this notice because the records of Amazon.com indicate you are rewarded from our special feature rewards Amazon.com program for our customers with special, Gold Box coupons that offer added savings over Amazon's everyday low prices.
The EMAIL tells you that you've won some incredible discount (over $100) that will be deposited into your bank account. The link, however, doesn't go to Amazon.com but to some page belonging to an identity theft gang.
The fakery is pretty clever: it really looks like the Amazon sign-in page. It also checks to insure you've specified the correct EMAIL address, so if you try to enter you_are_stupid_scum@hotmal.com it gives you an error message. Personally, I think that's damned unfair and takes a lot of the fun out of the process.
In the meantime, be careful with EMAIL It is rapidly becoming usless as a marketing tool because so much of it is fraudulent. It's to the point that if Bruce's wife sends him an EMAIL asking him to buy a gallon of milk on the way home, he checks the headers to make sure it isn't really a Nigerian scam.
It's a very dangerous world out there.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Sat 1:40 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More EMAIL Hell
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I get calls from my Mom, or other such relations asking me about an email they get. To reassure them, I have them forward it to me.
If I ever doubt the authenticity of an email, I looked at the raw source where it says to "Click here".
Enough said.
Posted by: Jenn at May 23, 2006 11:04 AM
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