Subscription order scams exposed!

Thanks, this gives us a detailed look on the red flags.

There's so much happening in this correspondence. First, there's "Jessica" using what's called a 'temporary email address generator' to send the bait, then you have the "account" details in the email body, which look more like a sequence of completely random numbers and letters, and once you open that invoice (people, don't try this at home, @Flexx is a seasoned user who knows how to protect himself), the first thing we notice is that "VISA Card Holder" and "Registered Email" fields are blank, because of course they are, since this is a template used for spamming, and if you check the upper right hand corner of the "invoice" and look closely, you can notice that the VISA and McAfee logos have been tampered with and just copy/pasted there.

Then the author asks the burning question: "is there an issue with this transaction?" Well of course there is, since the email came out of the blue and claimed to have withdrawn funds automatically for a subscription you didn't order, so here's where they prey on the sense of urgency by adding that "if you want your money back (who puts it like this anyway?) please contact within 12 hours, otherwise the refund will not be accepted."

This is a textbook scam and unfortunately it does make victims.. what happens if you dial that phone number? Well, the way these crooks operate is that they will try to extract sensitive personal or financial information, such as your credit card details, banking info, passwords, or account verification codes, under the guise of "resolving" the issue, in this case "issuing the refund". They will later use this information to make unauthorized transactions or gain access to your accounts. The scammers might try to coerce you into making immediate payments to cancel the supposed transaction or subscription, adding urgency and fear to pressure you into acting quickly. Furthermore, they might target you for more elaborate schemes or sell your information to other fraudsters.

So yeah, this is what usually happens in this scenario and I think it is very important to expose these scams and spread the word, to reach as many people as possible.

These red flags can be spotted easily by the trained eye and if you take enough time to analyze the email content, also taking into account the context in which the email was sent.
But unfortunately many people fall prey to these scams due to the simple fact that they are in a hurry, and that this sense of urgency works many times and aims to make the recipient ignore the obvious red flags and not take the necessary time to evaluate the situation..

Yeah, nice try — who on Earth pays 899 USD for a home solution.. This and "call us within 12 hours" are meant to create the feeling of urgency, of course. There are also some grammatical errors, but you can see that they made an effort to make it seem as believable as possible.

And today's lesson is: a reputable vendor will never send you an invoice out of the blue using a random gmail address!

Thanks for sharing @Flexx.