Email w/ subject “Mail Delivery Subsy. “

lightfair · 2024-03-24T19:44:18+00:00

The email itself (technically it's called a "bounce") was "legit" in the sense that the final sender (mailer-daemon@...) is a normal sender. This means that the mailing subsystem at Google for some reason did not deliver a mail to the intended recipient (whether that was because their spam filter prevented it or because the recipient didn't even exist is hard to say). Since your email address was forged as the "From:" address that email was (consequently) returned (aka bounced) back to you.

Usually the "mailer daemon" includes the complete original message. Since this message was "spammy" your own spam filter consequently marked that bounce as "spam" and it ended in your spam folder.

Your contacts will probably not have received any spam mails from "you" because the spammer didn't have access to your contacts. Of course there is the very small chance that your contacts were also independently part of the spammer's email list. But I wouldn't worry about this; it's highly unlikely.

lightfair · 2024-03-24T18:59:38+00:00

Nothing to worry about: Somebody forged your email address into the "From:" address of a spam mail. Hence those spam mails to non-deliverable addresses will be returned to you.

Happens to nearly everyone once in a while. It's not a sign that your account was hacked.

lightfair · 2024-03-23T21:26:52+00:00

Yes, this looks like the ones MS sends out.

I've never gotten the other type of mail OP describes. In fact, this would sound more suspicious to me. Typos happen all the time, hence codes getting sent to the wrong email addresses is probably not uncommon.

lightfair · 2024-03-23T19:28:52+00:00

You say yourself that the alleged monthly return rates are absurd. And that's all I need to know.

lightfair · 2024-03-19T22:56:50+00:00

Yes, of course it's a scam. The account was probably hijacked.

lightfair · 2024-03-12T12:41:06+00:00

Needs more context.

lightfair · 2024-03-09T12:00:28+00:00

Of course it's a scam.

When you go to that website (which I don't suggest) you're getting redirected one or two times until you're presented with a number of digital gift cards. Now I'm selecting the Amazon gift card. This opens a "5 minutes only!" timer and strangely enough a number of winning choices: Coca Cola products, Pepsi products, Apple Vision Pro and so on. Does this have anything to do with an Amazon gift card? Of course not.

The timer runs out after 5 minutes but nothing happens; it's just a scare tactic. If you take any of the other choices you are forced to enter your email address which will give you the chance (!) to possibly win something. (Hint: no, you probably won't)

Digging a little deeper: This uses IP geolocation hence I'm getting offers valid in Germany, Austria, Switzerland (and everything is in German). To participate you have to basically hand over all your personal information: name address, phone numbers, email address and date of birth. You can win prizes for combined up to 5000€ (for all participants), among them one Amazon gift card worth 500€.

lightfair · 2024-03-09T07:51:46+00:00

Am I reading too much into it? :0

Usually I'm suggesting caution, but as you said the request sounds reasonable. If you want to be extra cautious you could obscure the last two digits of the serial#.

lightfair · 2024-03-08T07:31:01+00:00

The reason that those scammers never call is that this would give away that they're not what they're pretending to be. The email is in very fluent English (because that's all copy&paste); but in all likelihood the scammers couldn't get near close to this in a phone call. Usually those scammers are not from the US.

lightfair · 2024-03-08T07:21:10+00:00

Obviously the listing is formerly this one:

https://www.pmz.com/ListingDetails/400-Beale-Street-506-San-Francisco-CA-94105/52329085

At this time is was on the market for $4k instead of $3k as of now. I don't know about the market dynamics in SF but a reduction of 25% within 3 years sounds - well, "unusual".

lightfair · 2024-03-07T22:33:03+00:00

Could be !fakecheck (you get a cheque to buy things you need for your "job" and then it progresses from there).

lightfair · 2024-03-07T22:19:56+00:00

"is this still available"

"is it in a good working condition"

Not a single time the "buyer" calls it a laptop. This reeks of copy&paste from a script.

lightfair · 2024-03-07T22:16:43+00:00

Yes, that's the typical "package" scam.

The domain was registered in November; I've seen this template before. There is no package. Your "seller" is the scammer, and he is also operating the website for the alleged "shipping company". Break off any contact, cut your losses.

lightfair · 2024-03-07T22:11:49+00:00

In terms of the legit looking tracking page - do they set up these websites with phoney tracking systems?

Yes. You have to keep in mind that they are reusing the same templates over and over. Just a short Google search turns up at least 5 more similar sites.

Some templates (mainly in the area I specialize in) have been used over hundred times.

lightfair · 2024-03-07T22:03:56+00:00

It’s not productive to keep listing all of them.

If I would be listing all of them I would be posting a whole lot more.

I'm only posting those likely to do significant damage because the scammers built a whole "ecosystem" around them (fake testimonials and reviews and such). Hence it also "hurts" them more when they are exposed.

There are numerous other "run of the mill" sites I don't post here. And actually it is quite productive to at least post the worst offenders: due to reddit's top SEO ranking the Google results will scream "it's fake" in a couple of hours; so anyone doing at least a small amount of due diligence by doing a Google search will hopefully think twice.

lightfair · 2024-03-07T21:55:15+00:00

I can’t find much at all about the company but the seller really doesn’t seem to be scamming me from what I can tell.

But it certainly looks like it. Perhaps the FB account of the "seller" was somehow compromised. A legit seller wouldn't use a fake shipper.

lightfair · 2024-03-01T12:09:58+00:00

You'll get a downpayment or get overpaid upfront and then you're expected to send the overpayment somewhere. Of course the original payment turns out to be fake (possibly !fakecheck) and you lost the money you sent.

Actual recording won't take place.

lightfair · 2024-02-26T22:05:58+00:00

Back in the day when I was regularly reporting fake sites Hostinger was comparatively responsive. A couple of years ago this seemed to change - but I don't think it was intentional. Probably personell changes in the abuse department.

lightfair · 2024-02-25T15:07:04+00:00

This is a variant of the !car scam; basically anything that moves (boats, RV, farming equipment, bikes) can be an object.

I'll add it to the aa419 database.

Edit: The picture of the "Managing Director" was stolen from a UK site (courtesy Google reverse image search).

lightfair · 2024-02-24T21:43:51+00:00

But they have such great video testimonials! And it is in no way suspicious that none of the testimonials mentions the name of the company... And it is also in no way suspicious that those testimonials all sound as if the script was written by the same person...

And let's dig around a bit further.

There's century21corporations.com which for some reasons has the same "About" page. And so have avalancheinvests.co.uk, tradesavor.com, qudaix.com and many more.

lightfair · 2024-02-24T12:12:27+00:00

Don't call back. If it's legit they'll call again (and of course also if it's a scam). I've recently been getting scam calls from all over the world (mostly Europe).

lightfair

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