Netizens Receive Alerts on DHL Phishing E-mails from South Bend Police

South Bend Police are asking residents to be careful of an e-mail scam that has led to a flood rise in telephone inquires to their department, as reported by wsbt on June 22, 2009.

According to Capt. Phil Trent, unsolicited e-mails looking to have come from DHL Worldwide Delivery are wildly circulating on the Internet, as reported by wsbt on June 22, 2009.

Trent further adds that the e-mail refers to a package worth US$ 250,000 to be delivered to the recipient. Therefore, it needs the recipient's phone number and address along with US$ 150.

Commenting on the attack, security experts have said that this is not the only e-mail scam run by phishers to trick innocent Internet users as plethora of such e-mails have been noticed earlier. Although the present scam is focused on DHL, there are a number of variants circulating wildly on the Internet, said Trent. The Police have received a high volume of complaints in the past month about the e-mail.

Moreover, majority of these scam e-mails are originating overseas and contain grammatical, spelling and syntactical errors, said Trent.

Security experts have highlighted that these minor errors could be extremely useful for Internet users to identify illegitimate e-mails from bulk of mails entering inboxes everyday.

Meanwhile, DHL has posted a message on its official website about e-mail frauds, and said that a huge volume of e-mails was currently circulating on the Internet that were actually sent by phishers.

The company has disclosed that majority of communications are concerned with online sale of goods and they ask for payment through money transfer for goods that have not reached the buyer.

Hence, DHL has asked customers to contact its Customer Service desk through e-mail at its global website (www.dhl.com) or contact by phone if they receive any e-mail requesting for money transfer for an item that has been under transport. Besides, customers should inform the company of any suspicious e-mail to check the authenticity of DHL communication.

The police have urged Internet users to avoid visiting any links within suspicious e-mails and recommended to delete them immediately.

Related article: Netizens Alerted Against Online Scams Exploiting Global Economic Crisis

» SPAMfighter News - 7/3/2009