Amazon emails or are they?

kathie1101

I've received 2 emails this morning apparently from Amazon, both came from amazon-offers@amazon.co.uk. 1 of the emails is saying COD Modern Warfare 3 is available for pre-order, but the other email says

"Mrs my actual name as displayed on amazon,

Thank you for pre-ordering The Witcher 2 from Amazon.co.uk. We've teamed up with Namco Bandai Games to offer you a code to download the Ultimate Swordsman Suit Pack DLC for free. Please find your code(s) along with redemption instructions below. .........."

I've had a look at the header info and the ip addresses all seem to tie back to amazon. I have spoken to amazon who are adamant that these emails haven't come from them. There doesn't seem to be any money taken from my credit card that is tied to my amazon account, nor is there any orders there that are not mine, and obviously I have changed my password just in case. I'm not an expert, but these emails do seem genuine to me and do not want to end up with a charge for this game that I haven't ordered (although my DS would like it!), and yes I know I should be able to get a refund if that happened, but would rather prevent it if possible.

Is there somebody that knows enough that could look at the headers/emails and say for certain if they are genuine or not, that wouldn't mind doing so?

Linbox

kathie1101 wrote: »

I've received 2 emails this morning apparently from Amazon, both came from [EMAIL="amazon-offers@amazon.co.uk"]amazon-offers@amazon.co.uk[/EMAIL]. 1 of the emails is saying COD Modern Warfare 3 is available for pre-order, but the other email says

"Mrs my actual name as displayed on amazon,

Thank you for pre-ordering The Witcher 2 from Amazon.co.uk. We've teamed up with Namco Bandai Games to offer you a code to download the Ultimate Swordsman Suit Pack DLC for free. Please find your code(s) along with redemption instructions below. .........."

I've had a look at the header info and the ip addresses all seem to tie back to amazon. I have spoken to amazon who are adamant that these emails haven't come from them. There doesn't seem to be any money taken from my credit card that is tied to my amazon account, nor is there any orders there that are not mine, and obviously ...

Hand holding - It's spam
You've gone to the trouble of physically chasing this up with amazon and your not happy with the horses mouth.

Don't down load the code - well not in windows anyway. It'll either install something on your pc or ask you for details of credit cards etc for security reasons...

RussJK

Check the headers; scams often work on our greed Anyone can send emails saying they come from Amazon, but it'll be a different IP address behind it. Feel free to forward it if you want to [EMAIL="russ_temp@fmail.co.uk"]russ_temp@fmail.co.uk[/EMAIL]

The part that isn't good is if they know your name. All kinds of ways this is possible... I wonder if we'll hear that Amazon had their customer database hacked like play.com

kathie1101

Linbox - sorry I should have given a bit more info earlier.

The chap I spoke to from amazon said that they would investigate - I asked him several times where I needed to forward the emails to for them to check them out (how can they investigate without the emails?) but he kept saying they don't need the emails.

Russ thanks for the offer - I might take you up on that if that's ok. As I say I'm no expert - I've checked the whois database and the ip addresses show that they are registered to amazon. And yes it does worry me that it shows my correct name. I have no idea how pre-orders work with Amazon, I am guessing that it should show up somewhere on my account if it was genuine, but I don't know. Everything about the email looks genuine, but amazon are saying it isn't. I will keep an eye on my account and see if anything else happens.

cgk1

Nothing will happen to your account unless you start following the instructions in the email - the email is the spammer's way into your account - just delete it and forget about it.

asbokid

kathie1101 wrote: »

The chap I spoke to from amazon said that they would investigate - I asked him several times where I needed to forward the emails to for them to check them out (how can they investigate without the emails?) but he kept saying they don't need the emails.

Some investigation then!

Russ thanks for the offer - I might take you up on that if that's ok. As I say I'm no expert - I've checked the whois database and the ip addresses show that they are registered to amazon

It's easy enough to spoof IP addresses in the header fields of an email. However, one of those IP addresses will be genuine..

And yes it does worry me that it shows my correct name.

Your real name didn't necessarily come from Amazon.. It could have come from email correspondence with any buyer or seller on ebay, whose machine has been subsequently been hacked.

Hackers often target the address book of a compromised machine, which may not be your machine, but the machine of someone you've emailed once-upon-a-time.

dzug1

kathie1101 wrote: »

The chap I spoke to from amazon said that they would investigate - I asked him several times where I needed to forward the emails to for them to check them out (how can they investigate without the emails?) but he kept saying they don't need the emails.

.

I suspect they already have enough copies of the e-mails and don't need any more

cgk1

Your real name didn't necessarily come from Amazon.. It could have come from email correspondence with any buyer or seller on ebay, whose machine has been subsequently been hacked.

Or just randomly selected - many people *without* amazon accounts will receive the same email.

spud17

Is there a connection with this other recent thread?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3202548

Mobeer

The pre-order email could be genuine:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Call-Duty-Modern-Warfare-DVD/dp/B00511T4QY

asbokid

cgk1 wrote: »

Or just randomly selected - many people *without* amazon accounts will receive the same email.

We are talking about the OP's email address and her full name, and how the spammer could have obtained all those details.

The OP's full name could not have been randomly selected or guessed by the spammer.

And since the spammer had both her email address and her full name, that implies the theft of an email address book belonging either to the OP, or to someone who has been in correspondence with her.

And the theft of an email address book is a very serious issue, since it probably involved the hacking of someone's PC.