The price of keeping your money is etermal vigilance ...

John Philpot Curran, or whoever else first used the phrase which was my quote of the day for today, was absolutely right to say that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance (or something similar).

It's worth remembering that this applies as much to the threat to freedom which can be caused by overzealous action on behalf of society's own guardians as well as external threats.

And in the internet age, it is equally true that if you don't want to be defrauded of your money, you have to be constantly alert. Especially against those who pretend to be defending you against fraudsters!

Most of those who attempt to trick people into giving out their account details give themselves away by errors in English or by something which does not quite match the tone used by the company they are pretending to be. But some are very clever indeed.

Take the fraudulent email below which I received today from some thief pretending to be Amazon.

(Don't bother posting any comments below making any of the obvious jokes in response to that, I would probably have to delete them to avoid exposing myself to legal action.)

I was on the verge of contacting Amazon customer service to ask if this email was genuine when I realised that it had to be a fraud because the email account it had been sent to is not the one I use to communicate with Amazon..

I can't help thinking that someone clever enough to set up this scam could probably find half a dozen ways to earn more money legally than they will be making by stealing from people. But sadly while original sin remains there will always be those who abuse their talents in this way.

The only safe rule is, if you get an email, text, or phone call along these lines from a company you deal with, and you think there is any possibility it might be genuine, contact the company the message claims to be from, and use a contact method you already had, not one given in the email, text or phone call.

Remember - if you think there is any possibility that someone who contacts you is a criminal trying to defraud you, they almost certainly are. If you think that a message is genuine, don't lose sight of the possibility that it might still be a criminal trying to defraud you. If there is a way to rob you, the crooks will find it.


This was the bogus message I received today ...




Dear Customer,

We received a request to reset the password associated with your account from an unrecognized device.

Location: Romania (IP=217.160.92.24)
Note: The location is based on information from your Internet service or wireless provider.

Was this you ?

If so, you can disregard the rest of this email.
If this wasn't you, please follow our verification process to protect your account information
from potential future account compromise.


1- Download the attached document and open it in a secure browser.
2- Follow the verification process to protect your account.

Our new verification measures have been put in place in 2014 to protect our customer's transactions on our website.



Amazon.co.uk Marketplace platform: Products sold by a Marketplace seller are subject to that seller's terms and conditions of sale. See www.amazon.co.uk for details.
Amazon Services Europe Sarl, a company registered in Luxembourg, Registration Number B-93815, 5 Rue Plaetis, L-2338 Luxembourg. VAT Number LU 19647148.


Amazon.co.uk is a trading name for Amazon EU S.a.r.l, Amazon Services Europe S.a.r.l and Amazon Media EU S.a.r.l.
Please note that this promotional e-mail is being sent from an e-mail address that cannot receive e-mails. If you have any questions and wish to contact us, click here.


Reference 42689421

Comments

Jim said…
if you receive e-mails like this the first thing that should draw your attention is that you are asked to download an attachment, then open it. Amazon would not do this, you would change your password by visiting the website, changing it then confirming the change. An e-mail will be sent almost immediatly to you but you would never be asked to download an attachment. At best you would be asked to follow a link to the site which you can varify by simply hovering the mouse cursor over it.
5:44 am
Jim said…
if you receive e-mails like this the first thing that should draw your attention is that you are asked to download an attachment, then open it. Amazon would not do this, you would change your password by visiting the website, changing it then confirming the change. An e-mail will be sent almost immediatly to you but you would never be asked to download an attachment. At best you would be asked to follow a link to the site which you can varify by simply hovering the mouse cursor over it.
5:44 am
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