Free Prepaid Visa Card Scam

Free Prepaid Visa Card Scam

This email is branded to appear as if it were sent by Visa and claims you can enter to win a free prepaid visa card, although it is just a scam. Visa is a multinational financial service which facilitates electronic funds throughout the world most commonly as credit or debit cards. The email is malicious and intends to infect your computer with a malware infection so, we strongly suggest deleting it from your inbox if it arrives.

Figure A is a copy of the free prepaid visa card scam email in question. It is well branded to suit Visa and offers the chance to win a prepaid Visa card by simply taking a short survey. There are two main call-to-action buttons and two more text links which will all lead you to a malicious website. The subject line for the email reads “Enter for a FREE prepaid VISA card” which is used to attract the receiver’s attention.

The sender is shown as “Prepaid Visa Card” however, the email address used is clearly fake and is in no way associated to the official Visa website. Notice the lack of personal greeting, pushy wording and fake privacy statement at the bottom which are all indications of the emails true intentions. Delete the email from your inbox to avoid clicking any of these links.

Figure B is a safely captured screenshot of the website you will land on if any links within the email are clicked. It is designed well enough to be believed and includes a time limit to participate, which is an attempt to hurry your next click. The form on the page asks simple personal questions – don’t be fooled. Clicking anywhere on this page will lead to a dangerous malware infection. If you have reached this page you may already be at risk so run your anti-virus and anti-malware software immediately on your device or PC.

Emails just like this one are all too common and reach inbox’s daily. We suggest deleting any email that is in the “too good to be true” category or is received when you didn’t sign up for their email communication.

Steph Kent
MailShark
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