Beware Amazon gift card scam

Beware Amazon gift card scam

Yesterday we had our first Amazon phishing scam since last year. Today we have our second, albeit this is a gift card scam. Beware of these types of gift cards scams; they dangle the bait of a gift card, but require you to click on a link and fill out a form with various personal details. This scam is no different.

You can read our piece on this email, or just refer to Figure A to see what the email looks like. We started seeing these emails late yesterday. There was an initial flood of emails. This is consistent with the launch of a campaign. Overnight the emails arrived more sporadically.

The email uses the subject line “Consumer News: Get a Amazon Gift Card!” The email shows as being from “Amazon Voucher”. The greeting is semi personalised; it begins with “Congratulations <recipient email address>”. This is a crude attempt to make the email seem more realistic. There are two links contained in the email. One is anchored to the button containing text “Enjoy a $50 Amazon Gift Card”. The other link is anchored to the button with the text “Start Now”.

This email is posing as a survey type email. Marketing companies do use free vouchers or other largesse as an enticement for customers to fill in surveys. It is a legitimate marketing tool. In this case, the email is offering a $50 Amazon Gift card if the recipient fills out a survey. Although getting a $50 Amazon gift card sounds good, this is a ruse designed to lure users to a malicious site. The enticement is that it is only a few questions.

Unfortunately, the site linked to asks for extra details, such as credit cards details. Mousing over the site shows that it does not lead back to Amazon. In addition, there is not actual indication this is from Amazon. Whilst the email address is “Amazon Voucher”, the actual email address is from a totally different domain. Amazon have a page with tips on detection of survey scam emails specifically claiming to be from Amazon.

Bottom line is that this email is bogus. Delete it if you receive it.

Scott Reeves
MailShark
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