Beware of Email Scams that appear to be from your Email provider

This morning, my wife got an email that looked legitimate enough and looked like it was from our Email Provider. This is the first time we had gotten one of these types pretending to be from our ISP. Usually, we get a phishing email from something that is pretending to be from a financial website. Since we are both “up” on this sort of thing, we immediately suspected it to be bogus and I called our provider to verify the email. Sure enough, the email was indeed bogus. Our provider never sent the email.

One really big point to keep in mind: Legitimate organizations will NEVER send an email to you asking for personal and sensitive information. If you suspect a bogus email, contact the organization that it was supposedly sent from to verify.

Here is an example of the Fraudulent email we got this morning, (the email provider name was removed):
————————–Example of Fraudulent Email—————————
From: “SUPPORT@YOUREMAILPROVIDER.NET”
Date: 2008/08/27 Wed AM 07:16:53 CDT
Subject: WebNews Email Account Update

THE “YOUREMAILPROVIDER” MAIL SERVICE WEBSITE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT WE
HAVE SOME PROBLEMS ABOUT EACH CUSTOMER ACCOUNT EMAIL. DUE TO ERROR CODE
334409. WE DISCOVERD THAT IN FEW DAYS FROM NOW EACH CUSTOMER WILL NOT BE
ABLE TO ACCESS HIS OR HER EMAIL ACCOUNT.

IN THAT REGARD,YOU ARE REQUIRED TO SEND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AND PASSWORD
FOR A NEW ACCOUNT UPDATE.

YOU ARE ADVISED TO IMMEDIATELY SEND US THE REQUIRED INFORMATION SO AS TO
ENABLE US IMMEDIATELY UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT.YOU ARE TO SEND US THIS
INFORMATION VIA EMAIL TO
account_update@sify.com

Note:You have to understand that the reason why we are not sending this
message from our own private account.This is due to some technical problem
we are having right now.
Thanks for your understanding.

BELOW THE INFORMATION RQRUIRED FOR ACCOUT UPDATE

1)Full Email Address:
2)password:
3)country:
4)date of birth:
5)First name/Last name:

YOUREMAILPROVIDER Privacy Statement | Copyright 2008 YOUREMAILPROVIDER . All Rights Reserved.

—————————————End of Example—————————–
NOTE: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ANSWER THESE TYPES OF EMAILS!

Click this link for more information: Fraud and Scam Alerts – Phishing

See also: More on Phishing