Scams like these

Hearing of your case in Court:

"Notice to Appear,

The copy of the court notice is attached to this letter. Please, read it thoroughly.
Note: If you do not attend the hearing the judge may hear the case in your absence.
Truly yours,
Clerk to the Court,
Sophie Bohr."

An attachment in ZIP format leaves the PC vulnerable to mischief.
 
I am sure someone else has mentioned this a while ago but the bogus Dun & Bradstreet credit rating extortion calls have been out there in the last few days.... calls to landlines and mobiles.
 
Body of email text that appears to be from Ethiad Guest received by myself and Mrs eastwest101 whom is Velocity Red. Note that I am not an Ethiad Guest member at all, we are Velocity Frequent flyer members though. Obviously I did not click on the links and deleted the email. Looking at the text of the email do people think this is:

a) a legitimate marketing attempt by EY to attract members?
b) indiscriminate phishing attempt?
c) possible harvesting or breach of Velocity membership database email addresses?

Anyone else got these lately or other ideas? Discuss.


October 2014



Etihad Guest number : 103288396385
Dear Eastwest101,

Congratulations, you’re one step away from becoming an Etihad Guest member.
To activate your account, click on the link below and start enjoying all
the exciting privileges and offers that come with your Etihad Guest
membership.
CONFIRM NOW!
If you did not sign up to join the Etihad Guest programme or are not the
rightful owner of this email, please forward this email to [email protected] informing us of this.
Yours sincerely,
Your Etihad Guest Team


CONFIDENTIALITY / DISCLAIMER NOTICE:
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential
and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify
the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any
copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the
intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. Etihad airways or its
employees are not responsible for any auto-generated spurious messages that you
may receive from Etihad email addresses.
Etihad
Airways

CONFIDENTIALITY / DISCLAIMER NOTICE:
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential
and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify
the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any
copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the
intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. Etihad airways or its
employees are not responsible for any auto-generated spurious messages that you
may receive from Etihad email addresses.

Etihad Airways
 
Would seem to appear genuine, particularly if you had done a status match...but that makes so sense unless you were doing a lot of travel in Middle East and it was a better program for your future travel and earn/burn rates.

Would be interesting to contact Etihad Guest CS and quote "Account Number" to see if there is such an account. I'd suggest checking their email address online, rather than using the address shown (in case it is a false account)
 
QF WP said:
Would seem to appear genuine, particularly if you had done a status match...but that makes so sense unless you were doing a lot of travel in Middle East and it was a better program for your future travel and earn/burn rates.

Would be interesting to contact Etihad Guest CS and quote "Account Number" to see if there is such an account. I'd suggest checking their email address online, rather than using the address shown (in case it is a false account)
Click to expand...

Ahead of you there - I looked up the official EY web site and found their cyber-security information page, there was a legitimate Ethiad email address where they request that "suspicious" emails should be forwarded to. Which I did. So hopefully they will return to me by email and let me know if it was a phishing attempt or a legitimate offer.

As it happens my VA status was originally matched from QF status (the big status match from a few years ago) but I have never really been to the EY website much, am not an EY Guest member, have not flown EY, and not been inclined to travel to the Middle East yet, so if it is legitimate I am not sure why they are targeting me. The account membership number in the original email did had numbers, I XXed a few out as a precaution along with my real name for privacy reasons.
 
On 2 September, my dad received an email (copied in its entirety below) from "Skywards" with the domain address emirates.ae instead of emirates.com. However he is not even a Skywards member and had not made any bookings with Emirates on that day. Funny thing is a google search revealed the same scam (even the amount of $391.62 was identical) reported back in 2011:
https://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=78559

Fortunately my dad's credit card was not compromised but I still called EK to report it and they gave me the email address to their Customer Affairs department. I forwarded the email to them but it bounced back with the error message "(reason: 554 rejected due to virus)". Fine, but I wasn't going to let it go since I wanted EK to be aware of this so it occurred to me when I was at the EK lounge in BNE recently to print out the email instead and let them have a copy for them to investigate if they wished...

From: Skywards <[email protected]>
Date: 2 September 2014 18:40
Subject: Booking Confirmation
To:






Thanks for the purchase!

Booking number: KPAKD5
Your credit card has been charged for $391.62.

Please print PASSENGER ITINERARY RECEIPT by logging into your Skywards personal pages
by clicking the link below:

https://www.skywards.com/Index.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fGetPNRsListServle/

To cancel your ticket, please click the link below:

https://www.skywards.com/Index.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fcancel_flight.aspx


On board you will be offered:
– Beverages;
– Food;
– Daily press.

You are guaranteed top-quality services and attention on the part of our benevolent personnel.
We recommend you to print PASSENGER ITINERARY RECEIPT and take it alone to the airport.
It will help you to pass control and registration procedures faster.

See you on board!

Regards
Customer Care
© 2014 Emirates , Skywards. All Rights Reserved
 
Last edited:
I got one of those too and ignored it as I don't need it anyway.
eastwest101 said:
Body of email text that appears to be from Ethiad Guest received by myself and Mrs eastwest101 whom is Velocity Red. Note that I am not an Ethiad Guest member at all, we are Velocity Frequent flyer members though. Obviously I did not click on the links and deleted the email. Looking at the text of the email do people think this is:

a) a legitimate marketing attempt by EY to attract members?
b) indiscriminate phishing attempt?
c) possible harvesting or breach of Velocity membership database email addresses?

Anyone else got these lately or other ideas? Discuss.


October 2014



Etihad Guest number : 103288396385
Dear Eastwest101,

Congratulations, you’re one step away from becoming an Etihad Guest member.
To activate your account, click on the link below and start enjoying all
the exciting privileges and offers that come with your Etihad Guest
membership.
CONFIRM NOW!
If you did not sign up to join the Etihad Guest programme or are not the
rightful owner of this email, please forward this email to [email protected] informing us of this.
Yours sincerely,
Your Etihad Guest Team


CONFIDENTIALITY / DISCLAIMER NOTICE:
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential
and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify
the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any
copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the
intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. Etihad airways or its
employees are not responsible for any auto-generated spurious messages that you
may receive from Etihad email addresses.
Etihad
Airways

CONFIDENTIALITY / DISCLAIMER NOTICE:
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential
and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify
the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any
copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the
intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. Etihad airways or its
employees are not responsible for any auto-generated spurious messages that you
may receive from Etihad email addresses.

Etihad Airways
Click to expand...
 
From today's ABC News 24 - story of a passenger who bought first class tickets through a company (turns out to be a rogue agent) - FF points were transferred into the passenger's UA account (360,000) and tickets issued against those. UA refused uplift at the airport because of fraudulent points use.

So a timely warning for anyone considering using those companies which are transferring and using FF points for cheap flights.

Travellers have lost $100,000 in scams this year, ACCC says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
 
MEL_Traveller said:
From today's ABC News 24 - story of a passenger who bought first class tickets through a company (turns out to be a rogue agent) - FF points were transferred into the passenger's UA account (360,000) and tickets issued against those. UA refused uplift at the airport because of fraudulent points use.

So a timely warning for anyone considering using those companies which are transferring and using FF points for cheap flights.

Travellers have lost $100,000 in scams this year, ACCC says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Click to expand...

Is this any different to using a company such as alphaflightguru dot com? A friend got a great deal with them for F on Thai to Europe (I think LHR? Not sure). I was convinced that when she got to the airport she'd be told that her tickets weren't valid, but no problem. There's no way I'd risk doing something like this.
 
BadgerBoi said:
Is this any different to using a company such as alphaflightguru dot com? A friend got a great deal with them for F on Thai to Europe (I think LHR? Not sure). I was convinced that when she got to the airport she'd be told that her tickets weren't valid, but no problem. There's no way I'd risk doing something like this.
Click to expand...

I think it depends how the points are accrued? If the company is buying points directly from the airline on your behalf that is probably ok (you could do the same yourself). But once the company starts buying or transferring miles from other passengers willing to sell them, in contravention of the Ts and Cs, you could end up with problems.
 
This one here confused the hell out of me this morning.

I have 7 emails from Apple and could simply be a case of typing error or scam.

The first 3 emails are addressed to me in Greek that an Apple Id has been created and that I have been connected to Facetime, iMessage and iCloud. Now the funny thing is the email used for Apple ID is "[email protected]" but my email is "[email protected]".

Then another 4 emails that the Apple ID password has been reset?, how to reset the password, verify apple ID and Apple ID has been updated. Each one mentions the Apple ID as "[email protected]". And where as first 3 emails were in Greek this one has my name in Greek but body of email in English.

Strange. What is going on? I am guessing one of my cousins or nephews have setup Apple ID and somewhere has left out a dot in the email address and I am getting emails?

Or is it scam?

One thing I did long time ago was signup my first name, last name without dot in between to email addresses I thought important to me.
 
JohnK said:
This one here confused the hell out of me this morning.

I have 7 emails from Apple and could simply be a case of typing error or scam.

The first 3 emails are addressed to me in Greek that an Apple Id has been created and that I have been connected to Facetime, iMessage and iCloud. Now the funny thing is the email used for Apple ID is "[email protected]" but my email is "[email protected]".

Then another 4 emails that the Apple ID password has been reset?, how to reset the password, verify apple ID and Apple ID has been updated. Each one mentions the Apple ID as "[email protected]". And where as first 3 emails were in Greek this one has my name in Greek but body of email in English.

Strange. What is going on? I am guessing one of my cousins or nephews have setup Apple ID and somewhere has left out a dot in the email address and I am getting emails?

Or is it scam?

One thing I did long time ago was signup my first name, last name without dot in between to email addresses I thought important to me.
Click to expand...

i would tend tend to ignore them. but if you want, just log in directly to your apple account. You'll soon find out if someone has changed your password!
 
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MEL_Traveller said:
I think it depends how the points are accrued? If the company is buying points directly from the airline on your behalf that is probably ok (you could do the same yourself). But once the company starts buying or transferring miles from other passengers willing to sell them, in contravention of the Ts and Cs, you could end up with problems.
Click to expand...

From what I read on their site it's not all that clear how the points are accrued. It still sounds a bit iffy to me, but good luck to my friend for getting a good deal for her first ever F flight. I wouldn't use anyone like that.
 
BadgerBoi said:
From what I read on their site it's not all that clear how the points are accrued. It still sounds a bit iffy to me, but good luck to my friend for getting a good deal for her first ever F flight. I wouldn't use anyone like that.
Click to expand...

with 360K miles transferred into the account in a single go I don't think that would equate to any allowable mileage purchase? Which was making me think the rogue agent had arranged the sale from an existing UA mileage account holder.
 

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