Brands’ Familiarity is Abused by Scammers to Scam Customers

According to security firm Symantec, online scammers often take advantage of the familiarity of a reliable brand for reducing the tendency of consumers to exercise caution while scanning the unsolicited e-mails/junk e-mails. The recent e-mail scam uses this trick and promises $80 to the user who participates in a short survey.

The fake e-mail appears to be sent by a fast food chain known across the world, noted Symantec. It claims that the company is intended to introduce heavy changes to its establishments so as to improve the quality of the services. For this, they are requesting customers to take part in an online survey and promise to offer cash incentive in return.

The security firm further said that in order to access this fake survey, customers are urged to click on a link given in the e-mail. The link actually takes them to a fake webpage that supposedly belongs to the fast food company.

Once the survey is completed, the webpage is then redirected to a bogus user authentication page, wherein customer's confidential information is asked, which includes credit card number and pin number, so that supposed reward could be credited to his fast food account.

It is further claimed on the page that the reward will be credited within three business days after the authentication of the user and will show up in his account history.

The security firm suggested that in case a person feels that he has been scammed, he should immediately block his credit card to prevent any financial loss.

Besides this, Internet users are suggested to follow some simple tips to avoid such online scams. Firstly, they should not click on any suspicious link in an unsolicited e-mail. Secondly, they should carefully check the website's URL given in the e-mail to ensure that it belongs to the original brand. Thirdly, users should type the brand website's domain name directly into the address bar of their browser instead of clicking on any link that may redirect them to some phishing/malicious site. Lastly, one should not forget that often a too good sounding offer turns out to be scam.

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» SPAMfighter News - 5/6/2010