There’s a new Gmail scam in town. I reported on the last Gmail phishing scam that crossed my Inbox. It involved a desperate friend emailing you for urgent help, which required revealing sensitive data and sending money. Here’s a link to that post.
The new scam is a bit more subtle and seemingly more official.
Sender’s Address: gogglleserve.usdataverizon@gmail.com
Any communication from Google is going to have the domain (the address after the @ symbol or the “strudle” as they call it here in Israel) from google.com. Anything that does not have @google.com after it is NOT from Google. Scammers often use addresses that say things like googleteam or other things infront of an @mail.com address. Don’t fall for it – these are scammers.
Subject Line:
Warning!! from Google Quality Control Team
First off, the Google team will never send you an email with a subject line like this. As a company that secures tons of data online they have no interest in creating a panic among their customers who trust them with this information. Opening words like “Warning” or “Beware” that induce fear when you first read them are not the stuff that corporate copywriters are going to use.
Also, the use of exclamation marks creates a sense of urgency that only adds to the panic. Again, not something a quality control effort is looking to do. No, my friends, these are the tactics of phishers: people trying to steal your account.
Text:
For more efficient and accurate network in order to secure all Google accounts from Spam and Slow Networks, the Google’s innovative technology therefore require all Gmail users to validate their details on the new webmail browser. We require all Gmail Users to update their account with Google Apps updates. To prevent your account from disability, you will have to provide the below for verification and validation.
Login Name:
Password:
Nationality:
Thanks for your Co-operation.
The Google’s innovative Team.
Okay, if you fell for this already, my apologies, but come on! Would Google really use such horrible grammar?
Let’s just start with this line: “For more efficient and accurate network in order to secure all Google accounts from Spam and Slow Networks, the Google’s innovative technology therefore require all Gmail users to validate their details on the new webmail browser.” Is this even English? I’m trying to picture the guy or gal sitting in a Singpore Internet cafe thinking up this line that will sound official and cryptic enough to fool stupid Americans into giving up their personal data.
I highly doubt that “the Google’s innovative technology there require” anything (it can take care of itself, including using proper grammar to scam people). First lesson to would be phishers and scam artists: when you want to come off as believable, write your scam note in proper English or whatever language you want to con people in.
Next line in my grammar attack (just for fun): “to prevent your account from disability.” Does this mean my account gets good parking spaces now? I think they meant to say “disabled.”
Finally, the word cooperation is actually a word. Yes Malaysian scam artists, no hyphen is required to write the word cooperation and if you hope to get this from would-be suckers then please spell this word correctly.
And now a serious note: I’ve been joking around in this post at the hilarity of the scam attempt in my Inbox today, but this is serious stuff. I personally know people who have fallen for Gmail scams like this in the past giving up their login and password resulting in a hacked account.
ALWAYS REMEMBER: Google (and any legitimate web company for that matter) will not ask you to remind them of your login credentials or sensitive data. Trust me, they have this on file and are not going to part with it (it’s valuable information). That’s why these sites have a “Forgot Password” link because it is regular users like you and me who forget stuff, not the super innovative
