Scam E-mails Leverage Name and Reputation of Michelin

According to security researchers, scam e-mails have been spotted that misuse the name and well as popularity of Michelin, the well-known manufacturer of tires globally, while duping gullible people into giving away cash, published softpedia.com dated August 28, 2013.

Posing as arriving from Liverpool, UK office of Michelin Global Grants, the fake electronic mail addressing the recipient as "Dear Sir/Madam," tells that Michelin feels pleasure in telling him/her that he/she is the winner of a 1,500,000 pounds award grant within the company's worldwide economic empowerment scheme that it carried out on August 25th, 2013. The company thus congratulates the winner.

Subsequently, the e-mail requests the recipient to note that the scheme was based on e-mails wherein Michelin's IT department obtained 1bn e-mail accountholders' ids from which the draw's participants were chosen to carry out the draw by the department. There was no sale of tickets as the program wasn't any lottery rather it was wholly done online.

Finally, the electronic mail instructs the recipients for getting in touch with the grant manager over e-mail else phone.

But Michelin hasn't sent the said e-mail while there's no monetary award whatsoever for the recipient. Instead, the e-mail typically represents the "advance fee fraud," crafted for tricking users into transmitting cash along with their confidential details to cyber-criminals.

Moreover, if anyone communicates with the so-called grant manager, he'll get directed for submitting different upfront fees, which will apparently be used for the grant transmission's processing. There will be assertions by the scammers through the return e-mail that the fees will be used for meeting tax, banking, insurance and other, actually wholly fictitious, expenses. The scammers will tell the victimized users that the requested payment must come from them in advance for the full payment of the grant.

Certainly, the entire payment made will go to the miscreants. There will be little possibility of the money paid, returning to the victims, while they'll most surely not receive the promised reward that in fact, never existed. Unfortunately, the scammers will keep on asking for money again-and-again till the time victims ultimately understand the scam targeted at them.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/5/2013