email received entitled Windstream Member

Oddjob

Hi Guys, I need help,  I get all my emails forwarded from my domain to Yahoo Mail. 

This morning I received three copies of the following email. - it came from this address - ynhs@comcast.net.   I can't see where I have been told of it before and have never heard of Windrush.  It seems to be very short notice if it was genuine so I am guessing it is a scam?  I don't want to ignore it though, if it is genuine, and lose all my saved emails.  I looked for it on Snopes website but nothing was found. 

I looked up Windstream  on Google and it does appear to have had something to do with Verizon in 2011 but doesn't seem to be now?  It is an American company.

Also, on a normal email, you get the address from where the email comes 'from', then underneath you get the address the email is 'to' but there is no 'to' address on this.

Everything is telling me it is some sort of scam but not wanting to ignore it if it is genuine.

Yahoo Mail-Service

Windstream Member Update <ynhs@comcast.net>

Dear User

We noticed that you haven’t updated YahooMail  to all new futures. If you would like to continue receiving emails with this account, please visit mail.yahoo.com and log in by January 10, 2021. If you do not sign back in, this account will stop receiving email messages and the contents of your mailbox, including all email messages, settings and folders, will be permanently deleted.

For additional information, please visit the Yahoo Mail policy page at 
                                  YAHOO Policy

If you have forgotten your password or need help signing in, please visit this CLICK HERE.

Best regards,
The Yahoo Mail team

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5-7 Point Square, North Wall Qay, Dublin 1, Ireland

Neil_Jones

Knew before opening the thread it would be a phishing email.  Confirmed as soon as I saw "Dear user".  Delete it.

Oddjob

Thanks, all my senses were telling me the same, especially when it hadn't got 'to.....' but a niggle said I didn't want to lose my saved emails.

It also says futures, where I guess they mean features.

Neil_Jones

It sticks out a mile that's its not genuine.  It wouldn't have come from a Comcast email address for a start, or claim to come from a Comcast email address anyway, and all the links go to the same web page at a yolasite subdomain.

Anyway if its a free Yahoo Mail account you don't normally get advised that you will lose it because you haven't signed into it.  You obviously are because you've picked that up.  Why would they email you at an address you haven't supposedly signed into for a while? Free email accounts do expire, yes, but you have to not sign into them for quite some time - seems to be conflicting information for Yahoo Mail, which seems to be anywhere from 90 to 365 days (it may be that the longer you've had it the longer you get before it gets purged).  Hotmail is 270 days and Gmail apparently 9 months but again conflicting information.  You may be able to keep your Google account though, if not the Gmail/photos/video/other benefits.

Oddjob

I go into yahoo everyday for my emails, I am glad you said about Gmail though, as I have a couple of Gmail addresses that I used to use for work and only access occasionally if I want an email address but don't want to use my main one, so I will have to remember to log in every now and then.

I didn't click on any of the links to see where they went.  I don't trust links on emails unless I am certain they are genuine and this one just looked dodgy.

Thank you very much for your help.

Gillor

Neil_Jones said:

It sticks out a mile that's its not genuine.  It wouldn't have come from a Comcast email address for a start, or claim to come from a Comcast email address anyway, and all the links go to the same web page at a yolasite subdomain.

Quite.
The link leads to a real amateur looking web page which appears to have been created using Yola’s the free web page offer.And they can’t even spell “Password” correctly.

Anyway, I logged in to my non-existent Yahoo account using a fake Username and Pass’word (stet) and do you know what, it thanked me for updating my details. How nice.

There are some seriously professional looking phishing sites around which could quite easily fool many people, but this isn’t one of them.

twopenny

One hint is the mis spelling. It's done to filter out some people who might be suspicious though that's getting less now.

Click on a link is another........there are numerous ones at the moment all saying that something dire will happen if you don't follow through with that particular email.

I've had - TV license, car insurance, stab in the dark ones about accounts or Amazon/UPS deliveries. They pick things that have a large client base with the chances that quite a few of the people receiving them will have use of.

They are set up to make you panic and I still have to always check and think hard.

The worst was a replica of the AVG virus warning. It looked identical but appeared on pages that were likely to be used by older ladies like 'embroidery'. It was got rid of by closing down and rebooting should anyone get it.

Oddjob

Yes, I think I get more of those sort come up on my phone now though, don't seem to get very many get through no on my email.  I prefer the bank spam ones that say to log into my online bank account as there has been a suspicious payment made.  I don't do online banking!!  I also only have one bank account so that cuts out a lot too.

twopenny

New one today. Made me laugh.

Had a Government.uk logo - email leod@liveit - an American dating format - we can't deliver your parcel click on this link

Not sure if they throw everything they've heard of at the email or if it's the selection process to catch the vulnerable.

Neil_Jones

twopenny said:

New one today. Made me laugh.

Had a Government.uk logo - email leod@liveit - an American dating format - we can't deliver your parcel click on this link

Not sure if they throw everything they've heard of at the email or if it's the selection process to catch the vulnerable.

Mass mailed (or randomly generated email addresses, the free ones for Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo are almost certainly guaranteed to land in an inbox no matter what you generate as an address as they are prolific services)

Mr_squishy

Gillor said:

Quite.
The link leads to a real amateur looking web page which appears to have been created using Yola’s the free web page offer.And they can’t even spell “Password” correctly.

Anyway, I logged in to my non-existent Yahoo account using a fake Username and Pass’word (stet) and do you know what, it thanked me for updating my details. How nice.

There are some seriously professional looking phishing sites around which could quite easily fool many people, but this isn’t one of them.

I left the user name and password blank and it still thanked me for them, although I did have to complete the recapture task before it accepted.

The site even had "made with Yola" at the bottom.

Just went to the report abuse on their home page and 20 minutes later they congtacted me to tell me they had disabled it.