If you’ve got an Adwords account, watch out for these dirty phishmongers!
Like most people, I’ve had millions of scam emails in my time. This one (received today) however I think deserves a mention.
Why? Because it combines a number of things together which I think makes it more compelling than many such scams.
1) The email address doesn’t look too suspicious
2) The login address looks right(ish)
but more importantly
3) It capitalises on the fact that Adwords billing IS a complicated-looking pile of stuff to the Adwords newcomer. It leaves me uncertain whether or not I’ve actually succeeded in turning off all my campaigns. In fact it makes about as much sense as my mobile phone bill.
First principle in scams is this: do not use a link in ANY email that asks you to go update billing details. A credible organisation would ask you to log on as normal if anything needed reviewing or changing.
And additional give-away in this one is that the URL in the email goes to an non-secure server (http:// not https://).
And finally, Firefox flagged it up as having been reported as a scam site. Click on the thumbnail (above) to see the content of the email and Firefox’s response to the link it points to.
Nice try.
Meantime, Google, you could maybe simplify your billing / campaign control with a big red ‘STOP’ switch – i.e. give your customers a clear indication that all activity is OFF?
Out of interest, why is this site still up? Does it take days or weeks to decide a site is scamming? Or is there, perhaps, no-one to make that decision?
Recent Comments