I thought I would share this with all the members here.
Although I have only had a handful of very small wins, I am very grateful to all who post solutions and competitions, and,, thought I would share this in the hope that it helps fellow members
Just before I go into this, I want to say that I consider myself quite tech savvy, but even found myself caught out by "most" of these.
I will list 5 examples of email spam/fake/phishinhg abuse, I have recently received.
I have a DEDICATED competition email, and, check the forums each day for competitions here.
I have removed my name / email just in case for security.
Almost all of these emails use the format :-
dear (your name)
The most worrying/upsetting thing for me, is that a few of them used relatives names when sending. I have suffered a tremendous loss recently with my Mother, so I know that these were fake, however it doesn't make it any less distressing.
Example 1: Letter of employment
https://imgur.com/a/xlLDCW2#HAXZ3nN
I have taken the time to do a domain name search, by viewing the email header and then doing a whois check, for registrar information.
These are the senders details:-
th_me@misty-macaque.com
MISTY-MACAQUE.COM
Name Server: NS1.MISTY-MACAQUE.COM
Name Server: NS2.MISTY-MACAQUE.COM
To report abuse
abuse@namesilo.com
Example 2
https://imgur.com/ZIJeHI2
Again, this is exactly the same person as example 1:-
Natalie.Brat@hmrc-invoice.co.uk
th_me@misty-macaque.com
MISTY-MACAQUE.COM
Name Server: NS1.MISTY-MACAQUE.COM
Name Server: NS2.MISTY-MACAQUE.COM
To report abuse
abuse@namesilo.com
Example 3
https://imgur.com/z8zRLWq
a supposed CNN article referred to me by my Mother
Senders details:-
vic@drab-dog.com
Domain Name: DRAB-DOG.COM
Name Server: NS1.DNSOWL.COM
Name Server: NS2.DNSOWL.COM
Name Server: NS3.DNSOWL.COM
Registry Domain ID: 2258871284_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
To report abuse
abuse@namesilo.com
Example 4
https://imgur.com/BuiT72n
This was another worrying one for me. They have a time and date of the flight and everything.
Given that I have entered competitions to win holidays, I was almost fooled by this.
However, a quick google search showed, that is a fraudulent company on a massive scale, taking people's money for flights that never materialise.
Senders details:-
l.me@deficiary.com
Domain Name: DEFICIARY.COM
Name Server: NS1.DEFICIARY.COM
Name Server: NS2.DEFICIARY.COM
To report abuse
abuse@namecheap.com
Example 5
https://imgur.com/6JWzOcX
One of the more "traditional" fake emails, this one was easy to spot.
senders details:-
mmm63333www@gmail.com
theaudience@2theaudience.com
Domain Name: 2THEAUDIENCE.COM
Name Server: NS1.FNC.LU
Name Server: NS2.FNC.LU
To report abuse
legal@eurodns.com
For what it's worth, what fooled me, was the fact that I saw what appeared to be genuine notifications from my email provider.
Had it not been for malwarebytes blocking insafe domain names, I would have clicked through, when clicking on these:-
https://imgur.com/ZsSdKbP
"Do you classify this MESSAGE as unwanted/spam?"
Now compare it to this, notice the difference?
https://imgur.com/g8ZHqVt
"Do you classify this EMAIL as unwanted/spam?"
This last part really got me thinking. Like I said, I consider myself pretty tech savvy, but when it comes to e-mail, dont trust ANYTHING.
That's my general rule.
I used to be with hotmail, and, last year, spent the best art of 6 hours each day, filtering and tracing spam. I successfully got a lot of domains shut down, as i bombarded the support department with spam email reports, including headers.
For a 1 month period, it was all quite on the western front, probably for a lot of other people too.
If you need help/advice on how to trace/ show headers, what to look for please reply here or PM me, I am happy to help.
I just thought I would post this in the hope that it helps people, as not all competions are created equal!
