Amazon Prime Day is less than a week away and scammers are taking full advantage. This week’s ConsumerAffairs-Trend Micro Threat Alert shows scammers are using their complete bag of tricks.
Amazon-related Scam/Phishing
Trend Micro's research team identified:
SMS messages from scammers say that due to your account security issue, you need to log in via the fake URLs on the message. The victims might share their phone numbers or emails with scammers since they were asked to use these kinds of personal information to retrieve their accounts.
The top five states being targeted are Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Scammers pretend to celebrate Amazon Prime Day and then invited users to sign-up and get free shipping benefits in order to steal victims’ personal information.
The top five states being targeted are Washington, Ohio, Minnesota, Virginia and Missouri.
Scammers are utilizing a $100 Amazon gift card as a reward to attract email receivers to click the mail or even to redirect them to other suspicious websites. Trend Micro found 15 logs on July 2.
Scammers are impersonating Amazon to give special discounts on some houseware and redirect victims to buy those on fake shopping sites. Trend Micro found 10 logs on July 1.
“Consumers should be wary of unsolicited communications via text or email where they are offered great deals but then are asked to provide personal information about themselves or give their financial information like credit card info to the solicitor,” Jon Clay, vice president of Threat Intelligence at Trend-Micro, told ConsumerAffairs. “On Amazon Prime Day, we advise consumers to go to the Amazon site themselves instead of via any solicitation they receive.”
DHL Shipping Scam
Trend Micro research team found scammers asking victims to pay 1.99 Euro with their credit card info with the lure of the customers getting access to their parcel within 24 hours.
The top five states being targeted are California, Colorado, Texas, Pennsylvania and Illinois.
In the most common shipping scam, scammers impersonate famous brands like DHL and send out malicious text messages or emails.
Using the emails, they hope to persuade you that you have to track your package delivery status, schedule for redelivery, or solve some technical issue via a link they provide. Clicking the link, however, downloads malware.
Louis Vuitton Phishing
Trend Micro research team found scammers impersonating Louis Vuitton to give receivers time-limited discounts for the brand bag and redirect them to purchase on a fake shopping site. Trend Micro detected 2,342 logs on July 3.
In most cases, the fake shopping site takes your money and disappears. In some cases, it might sell you a knock-off, something Louis Vuitton is trying to eliminate.
Travel Scam
From April 1 to July 3, Trend Micro identified 2,077 travel-related scam URLs, which increased by 4.9% compared to the past weeks.
Trend Micro found fake Booking.com and Airbnb login pages, with over one-third of the victims from Oregon (32.41%).
The top five states being targeted are Oregon, Virginia, Washington, Pennsylvania and Illinois.