The other day I received a “notice alert” from an email address allegedly related to amazon.com. The notification informed me of my Amazon account being blocked due to suspicious log-ins and requested me to take action in order to unblock it. It was sent from the email address m͏a͏i͏l@͏u͏p͏d͏a͏t͏e.͏a͏m͏a͏z͏o͏n.͏c͏o͏m with the additional address [email protected] appearing on the side within delimiters. The letter’s subject was “[No͏t͏i͏c͏e ͏Al͏e͏r͏t] – ͏͏͏Unusual login activity” and it read as follows…
Dear Customer,
We have blocked your amazon because our service has detected two unauthorized devices. Our service has protected your account from someone who has accessed your Amazon account from other devices and locations.
Before anyone can change your account information or order any item with a credit / debit card bill. For your security, we have blocked your Amazon account.
How do I unblock my account?
You must verify your Amazon account and complete and complete the information on the data that was printed on your account when you first registered.
To comlete the process, click on the button link below.
Unlock my Account
The Amazon account will be unlocked automatically, after comleting the account verification as soon as possible.
If you do not verify within 24 hours, our service will permanently block your Amazon account.
Thanks again for your visit to Amazon.
The whole thing screams “we are scammers”. What bloody idiots. You can right away tell that this is a fraud for a number of reasons: To begin with, the letter’s ludicrously poor English is a definitive clue. Second, the additional, crummy email address appearing on the side of the first sender is a dodgy sign (I don’t know what that even means when two separate addresses show up in the sender field). Lastly and most obviously, this is an illegitimate email because it is sent in an image form rather than plain text. Scammers commonly do this in phishing emails (like this PayPal scam e.g.). I don’t know what they’re trying to achieve by excluding text, but they must apparently have their reasons.
Overtly, the idea is that if you click on the link, you will be guided through a fake account-recovery process while providing the fraudsters with your personal information, starting with your Amazon log-in credentials and moving on to your credit card’s information. Stay away!
Unfortunately for me, the used email address does not accept responses. So I could not use the occasion as an opportunity for a good scamming-the-scammers piss-take. I do however post this article as a potential warning to other people targeted by this scamming operation. Go to this Amazon’s page for more information on identifying fake emails.
