Got A Series Of Strange Emails From Gmail & Amazon

[OneEyedDiva]

Last week, I got about four or five emails from Gmail notifying me of delivery failures to email addresses I haven't sent anything too in several years. The one allegedly from Amazon has an address nobody@bounces.amazon.com with a lock icon next to it. Part of it says "PS: You've received this email because Amazon.com received the following message" and goes on to list some email addresses in my contacts, some of which I haven't used in years. What the heck has Amazon got to do with Gmail?! Of course they went into Trash.

Have you gotten any strange, suspicious emails (besides the obvious scams and phishing)?

 

[RedAlert76]

Delete them all and do not open new opens--- Stuff like that can be scams, and malware . Mark as spam them delete.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

Delete them all and do not open new opens--- Stuff like that can be scams, and malware . Mark as spam them delete.

Thank you. They have been marked as spam and deleted. It's a little tricky because the Gmail ones come through like regular mail delivery failure notices. I've had a couple of legitimate ones over the past couple of months. The Amazon one definitely looked suspicious, though.

 

[C50]

Last week I got a text message from Amazon stating they had removed a vendor for violations and I would receive a full refund for my purchase without having to return the item. I just had to go to the provided link and file my claim.

I almost fell for it because that very day I had returned an item for the second time because it didn't match what was advertised on Amazon. I also filed a complaint with Amazon that the vendor was misleading in their add.

Thankfully I'm wary enough to never follow random links, plus Amazon had never contacted me by text before, only email. Going directly to the Amazon site I saw I had no such message and my returns had already been refunded. I would guess if I had followed the link I would have been asked for my CC number so my money could be refunded.

 

[Deya]

Good thread because recently there has been a surge in scams. I assume everything is a scam until I can go to the source and check it out. Amazon and Paypal scams have been filling my email lately. Tax relief scams keep my phone ringing.

Scammers can make their emails look official including using government forms. They are off shore, so no way our Federal law enforcement can stop them.

 

[Michael Z]

I have gotten many of these. One way to verify they are a scam is to click reply to the email (without actually sending) and see what the address it would be going to.

At any rate, I never actually reply to these types of “alerts“. Instead I go to the website involved and find a contact phone number to check things out if I feel there may be any merit to the notification.

But any email wanting me to click on some link or provide information is almost certainly a scam.

 

[Sunny]

As far as I know, there is no danger in opening an email and just reading it. The danger comes if we click on a link they give us. Do not ever open a link you have any doubt about. But if we were compromised by just reading the mail that was sent to us, we would be compromised every day.

It's not always that easy to tell the difference between a legitimate email, a charity looking for donations, a business offering sales or sending bills, an appointment reminder, and something more suspicious. At least, not by just reading the email address of the sender. I think it's perfectly OK to open the email itself and read it, just be careful not to click on their links unless you are sure they are OK.

 

[Fritz]

Thank you. They have been marked as spam and deleted. It's a little tricky because the Gmail ones come through like regular mail delivery failure notices. I've had a couple of legitimate ones over the past couple of months. The Amazon one definitely looked suspicious, though.

Usually the emails are a dead giveaway. They may say amazon.com but if you look at the info before it like for example nobody at amazon dot com is definitely gonna be bad. If ever I'm in doubt I do a quick Google search to see if that is one of Amazon's emails just to make sure. If I still have doubts I just delete it.

 

[fuzzybuddy]

It kind of says a lot about the sorry state of company's responding to customer complaints, that when they do respond; you automatically think" this is a scam".