Amazon Scam Alert

I was all set to write my post and this appeared in my inbox, hence the 'Amazon Scam Alert' title.

First glance it looks pretty legit. Were it not for the fact that I have nothing on order with Amazon, I may well have given it a second glance. Actually, I probably wouldn't have, when you get dozens of these type of 'scam' emails, you can smell them. Though, this is my first 'Amazon' type.

That said, notice how the email address looks like the real deal.

In the body of text there were a couple of links which either ask if you wanted to 'View' your orders or 'Confirm and complete your orders'

If you are inquisitive, as I am sure some will be, there is a something you can do without putting yourself at risk.

If you hover the cursor over the highlighted words and then right click you mouse, the menu that appears will have an option to:

'Copy link address'

You can select that and it will do what it says. Then you can open a 'Notepad' file, or other blank document like Word or Wordpad (or the equivalent on a Mac) and paste the link there. Now you can see exactly where the link was going to take you.

In this instance, I'm pretty sure it wasn't going to Amazon. Here's the link:

http://d.lamarcaprosecco.com/modules/color/lmages/

Through a series of redirects you could well end up here.

Well now, that does look convincing. Obviously the trail ends here. If you try any of the links on this page, you will either end up back on this page or they just won't work. I did manage to get to a '404' page as well. It's not something I would advise trying anyway.

From start to finish, there's enough 'red flags' to stop a dozen trains. I also don't recommend that you play around with this type of scam, unless you know how the game is played.

Dave wrote a post the other day Cyber Security (Or lack of.) which covers a different aspect but one that is equally important.

Sorry that this isn't my normal type of post but I thought it important to bring this to your attention, as I haven't had one of these before.

I'll leave my good news for the next one.

Stay safe and be aware that even in these difficult times, there will still be those that are quite happy to rip you off.

Twack Romero.