topic Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect in Community Chat

A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

shoesnbags — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 05:02:19 GMT

Just wanted to share this because it's the first time I've received a scam email that looks perfect in every way. No misspellings or grammatical errors and it's addressed to my husband's first name which is on the account. Best of all when I hover my cursor over the emaill address at the top, there's no long string of letters and numbers. It says attdotcom, just as it should.

It asks for an additional $2.12 payment on our bill this month, but we have autopay ha ha. I went to the AT&T website and it showed that we have no balance, and I then spoke to customer service to verify. He said that we have $0 due and no email went out from AT&T. So evidently someone has perfected a perfect scam email. And that baby was just full of live links to click on to pay your balance, contact customer service, go to their website, etc. Scary!

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

on the bay — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:04:19 GMT

That is scary. I just don't even click on any links from an email or text even if it is from a business I know. I then go to their site and sign in and see whatever needs to be done.

The doctors here do use texts to confirm appts and I do use those.

I think Walmart does to.

Jeez scammers are getting too good!

Thanks for that reminder to be very careful @shoesnbags!

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Mindy D — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:16:52 GMT

@shoesnbags wrote:
Just wanted to share this because it's the first time I've received a scam email that looks perfect in every way. No misspellings or grammatical errors and it's addressed to my husband's first name which is on the account. Best of all when I hover my cursor over the emaill address at the top, there's no long string of letters and numbers. It says AT&T.com, just as it should.

It asks for an additional $2.12 payment on our bill this month, but we have autopay ha ha. I went to the AT&T website and it showed that we have no balance, and I then spoke to customer service to verify. He said that we have $0 due and no email went out from AT&T. So evidently someone has perfected a perfect scam email. And that baby was just full of live links to click on to pay your balance, contact customer service, go to their website, etc. Scary!

@shoesnbags @I have received an AT&T email saying I owe $3.00 last month, after I paid what my bill said. Same as you, no errors, my name on email and my email address when I hover over the top. I called and was told I don't owe more and that the email was an error. Last week I received a new one saying I owe $6.00 after I paid the amounts due on all my AT&T accounts. I have not called about the latest one yet. I never clicked on anything in these emails. I just called billing. These might be billing errors. The CS agent did not say it was a scam. This time I'm going to get a supervisor involved. I also received an email saying that I should set up a recovery phone number to be called for my email account. A year ago, I worked with a supervisor to do this ( there's more to this story).

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

shoesnbags — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:32:46 GMT

@Mindy D

Hmm, that does sound like the same thing. At first my customer service person said that it could be a problem with their autobilling but then he checked and said that no emails had gone out to me. And that's when he said it must be a scam. Very strange, huh.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

on the bay — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:38:30 GMT

This brings up another problem that you all have mentioned here.

When you get a bill by regular mail or online showing you owe but you think that it must be wrong, I've found it is always worth it to call because I've had this happen and been told I owe nothing. The explanation is the billing has not caught up with what is current or in medical or other, they have not billed to both insurances if you have 2, or maybe not at all. Still the bill might be wrong.

Anyway, I've learned not to trust any bills or emails without checking by calling the company myself pretty much most of the time.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Mindy D — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:40:42 GMT

@shoesnbags @I might screen shot mine tomorrow, crossing out the personal info. We can see if we are getting the same thing.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

shoesnbags — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:41:35 GMT

@Mindy D

I just deleted mine, but I'll look to see if it's still there.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

shoesnbags — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:49:28 GMT

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Hippiified — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:55:42 GMT

@shoesnbags

Their correct web address is att.com

-no ampersand

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Mindy D — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 03:02:17 GMT

@shoesnbags wrote:

@shoesnbags @That's exactly how mine looks!

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

chrystaltree — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 03:11:38 GMT

Yes indeed, the scammers have perfected both their email communications and their phone communications. The days of typos, misspellings, amateurish letterheads and callers with heavy accents are gone. That's why we have to relax, center ourselves and think. Autopsy or not, that was an obvious scam because no one ever requests additional payment if we underpay a bill. They tack it on to the next month's bill. But it's likely due to the low amount, tens of thousands of people use the link and pay it. I read a story about a young girl in Australia who lost her $18,000 lifesavings when she was spoofed. She received an email that was identical in every way from the real bank. She was told her account had been hacked and to call a specific number. She spoke with a "customer service rep" who was very knowledgeable and professional. He set up a new account for her and told her to transfer her money to the new account. Of course she did and felt relieved. Until her heart rate settled and she thought about it. Took about 20 minutes but when she called her real bank, it was too late. Her money was gone. The bank said they did nothing wrong so they couldn't help her. As a longtime customer, they offered her $2000 as a goodwill gesture. I've had that happen to me twice recently. Once for an account I closed out in April. So, that was an obvious scam. Second time, I was wise enough to realize that was off. I called my bank and sure enough there was no suspicious activity on my account and if there had been, they call the customer, they would never send an email.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

shoesnbags — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 03:20:53 GMT

@Hippiified wrote:
@shoesnbags

Their correct web address is att.com
-no ampersand

@Hippiified

My screen shot didn't get the whole page unfortunately. On the actual email when I hover over the email address up at the top, it does indeed say attdotcom just as the real emails from the company do.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Hippiified — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 03:27:58 GMT

@shoesnbags Oh, OK

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

781Florist — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 04:29:01 GMT

Thanks for this heads up. I have AT&T so I will be extra cautious about any emails from them. I always look for typos or fractured syntax etc. or hover the cursor over the address to see if it really belongs to the company, but now if those things are legit looking

then what the heck do we do?!?

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

shoesnbags — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 05:08:24 GMT

@Hippiified wrote:
@shoesnbags Oh, OK

@Hippiified

That's ok. I accidently put the ampersand in my original post but went back and checked after I read your reply. The scam has no ampersand so it's a perfect fake. I corrected my OP to reflect that.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Imaoldhippie — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:03:08 GMT

@shoesnbags ..............Im mystified as to why the scam is for $2.12? Seems like a waste of time and energy for a scammer? It seem more like a computer billing error. Whoever is the billing company for AT&T should be notified. Maybe they have been hacked.

Just a thought.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

luvmyteddy4 — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:05:36 GMT

I got one from Norton Virus yesterday saying they billed me for 300.00 and then they leave a phone number to call if you have questions. Too bad I don't have 300.00 in my bank acct!

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

lkat — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:35:17 GMT

@Imaoldhippie wrote:
@shoesnbags ..............Im mystified as to why the scam is for $2.12? Seems like a waste of time and energy for a scammer? It seem more like a computer billing error. Whoever is the billing company for AT&T should be notified. Maybe they have been hacked.

Just a thought.

@Imaoldhippie They do this because a lot of people will pay it if it's such a small amount without bothering to check. But once they pay, the scammers have their credit card info or bank account info.

I've had this happen with my credit card. Someone tried a couple of small charges of $1.99 but luckily my credit card company caught it and sent me a fraud alert so I was able to get the card cancelled and the charges reversed.

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Imaoldhippie — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:52:48 GMT

@luvmyteddy4 ..............I have had an email saying they were McAfee and I was billed $250.00 because my protection expired. NOT!

Re: A Scam Email That Looks Perfect

Imaoldhippie — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:53:50 GMT

@lkat ...........wow those scammers are clever crooks.