Wendy’s Name Used to Steal Private Detail From Users

The Sheriff's Office in Pitt County North Carolina, US has warned internet users of an e-mail fraud that falsely talks about the "60th Anniversary of Wendy's Restaurant.", as reported by ibtimes on October 22, 2008.

The scam e-mail making way into unsuspecting consumers' inboxes says that Wendy's would be lowering prices for drinks and hamburgers on October 22, 2008 is fake, said the police. To celebrate the restaurant's anniversary, the message goes on to say that Wendy's would be presenting cheeseburgers worth 25 cents at its worldwide locations.

The e-mail further claims that the cost of hamburgers as a fast-food item would be a quarter, fries -15 cents, cheeseburger -30 cents and drinks only a dime. However, Wendy's confirmed that the message is totally hoax and it never made any such promotion. The restaurant also said that it was neither celebrating an anniversary nor distributing anything at cheap prices.

The Wendy's stressed that the restaurant was actually only 39 years old and they didn't offer any e-mail coupon. Bulk of internet users were searching for Wendy's to know the address of its nearest restaurant or to see its menu. However, the fast-food restaurant advised customers to shelve their wallets since Wendy's was not selling burgers. Besides, according to the managers of fast-food restaurants, they had never heard of a single-day promotion in which cheeseburgers were offered at so low prices.

Furthermore, the Wendy's anniversary e-mail fraud is not the only one that security researchers have detected. Internet surfers are also getting e-mails claiming that Barack Obama took an oath of the Koran. Another e-mail says that Obama filed a legal suit that demanded banks to provide loans to the economically downtrodden people. However, both these e-mails are false, according to researchers.

The researchers also said that by sending these hoax e-mails, spammers were attempting to steal personal data from users so that they later on use it for monetary gains. Fraudsters delivered malicious content with malware and bogus Website link embedded to attract people, and lately these e-mails known as phishing e-mails had been augmented during the ongoing financial crisis.

Related article: Window Jingle Attack Steals Data Drom PC Without Network Connection

» SPAMfighter News - 11/6/2008