Monday, March 08, 2010

WU scam

Here's a scam I almost fell for, since it was sent to the the email account I actually do use for Western Union, one I rarely use now.
It was clever to send an html page as attachment instead of giving a web link. But what confirmed to me that it was a "phishing attempt" was that the buttons I saw at the top did not do anything.

4 comments:

George said...

And most probably, you don't have a Social Security Number (SSN) either...

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, I did wonder about that. Actually I sort of do, the Danish "personnummer", but it's only used in Denmark.

Anonymous said...

Social Insurance Number, George.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

A simple safety gesture which I always rely on: when receiving such "notifications", connect to your known and reliable website through your usual link/address and method instead of clicking, and see whether you get the same notice.
Phishers use identical-looking pages, but at best they're located on a similar-LOOKING address. Sometimes an entirely different one!
So, I also took the habit of gazing at the bottom of my window to read the links addresses carefully.

Yup, SOME paranoia in this world is a good thing.

My expensive verif is a "porshe"!