I have Amazon Prime which is set to automatically renew in December around my birthday.
Last Friday I received an email from "Amazon Prime" informing me that they had tried to process my renewal but that the credit card charge had been rejected.
This was a possibility, although slight, because I have a few different cards set up for various auto payments.
There was a link included in the email for me to log in to "Amazon" and check my status.
I clicked on that and was brought to a blank page. That caught my interest and I looked closely at the Internet address.
Definitely NOT Amazon. I think looked carefully at the email header and that was definitely not Amazon either.
I deleted the email and told my wife that if she gets a similar email to ignore it because it's a scam.
Two suggestions to help avoid this sort of thing.
1) Always check the email header and the Internet address anytime you get an email telling you there is a problem with an on line account.
2) If you can, set your email to be viewed as plain text and NOT HTML. HTML message can hide some very malicious code and should be avoided like the plague. I only change the "view" of emails if I'm 100% sure that it's from a legit sender.
A late friend of mine who used to do a lot of computer security work told me to never trust HTML emails because they are so easy to embed code into. I've been doing that for about 20 years and he's been proven right time and again.
He also recommended against using Microsoft Outlook for email because every hacker and con artist on the planet targets it because MS security has traditionally been very lax.
A final note. I've received several emails from extortionists who cited passwords that I abandoned because of security breaches. That was a good 10-15 years ago, but hackers are still selling that data to people.
They threatened to release my "Internet browsing history" to everyone I know if I didn't by some amount of bit coin and sent it to them.
If you get an alert from someone like your Internet provider that your password has been breached, verify it immediately. If it's legit change your password. The same goes for any account like your cell phone, on line banking (if you use it), credit cards, and so on.
It's a PITA, but not as big as having a bank account emptied, or something bought on an online account and shipped to an unknown address.
Be careful out there on the wild, wild Internet.
Last Friday I received an email from "Amazon Prime" informing me that they had tried to process my renewal but that the credit card charge had been rejected.
This was a possibility, although slight, because I have a few different cards set up for various auto payments.
There was a link included in the email for me to log in to "Amazon" and check my status.
I clicked on that and was brought to a blank page. That caught my interest and I looked closely at the Internet address.
Definitely NOT Amazon. I think looked carefully at the email header and that was definitely not Amazon either.
I deleted the email and told my wife that if she gets a similar email to ignore it because it's a scam.
Two suggestions to help avoid this sort of thing.
1) Always check the email header and the Internet address anytime you get an email telling you there is a problem with an on line account.
2) If you can, set your email to be viewed as plain text and NOT HTML. HTML message can hide some very malicious code and should be avoided like the plague. I only change the "view" of emails if I'm 100% sure that it's from a legit sender.
A late friend of mine who used to do a lot of computer security work told me to never trust HTML emails because they are so easy to embed code into. I've been doing that for about 20 years and he's been proven right time and again.
He also recommended against using Microsoft Outlook for email because every hacker and con artist on the planet targets it because MS security has traditionally been very lax.
A final note. I've received several emails from extortionists who cited passwords that I abandoned because of security breaches. That was a good 10-15 years ago, but hackers are still selling that data to people.
They threatened to release my "Internet browsing history" to everyone I know if I didn't by some amount of bit coin and sent it to them.
If you get an alert from someone like your Internet provider that your password has been breached, verify it immediately. If it's legit change your password. The same goes for any account like your cell phone, on line banking (if you use it), credit cards, and so on.
It's a PITA, but not as big as having a bank account emptied, or something bought on an online account and shipped to an unknown address.
Be careful out there on the wild, wild Internet.
