Charity Project Money Email Scam
The following email scam attempt preys on the financial difficulties of receivers and claims to offer $1 million. This particular email asks you to reply but also contains malicious links to a website that will not only seek to obtain your personal information but can infect your computer with malware. Delete this email if received!
There are various websites which detail how many of these Fake charity scams work, we’ve provided a good list here:
Federal Trade Commission Consumer Information – Before Giving to a Charity
Consumer Affairs – Charity Scams
Investopedia – Don’t Donate to Charity Scams: 5 Warning Signs
Figure A shows the charity project money email scam in question. It is plain text, and is designed to look as a personal email sent by the so called millionaires. The subject line reads “Re: Charity Project” and the sender is shown as “Bill William and Andrea Groner”. The email states they have won a jackpot in the lottery and are looking to donate the sum of $1 million to 6 lucky individuals – the receiver being one of them.
Everything in this email is fake and a scam attempt to get you to click through to the website. Note the lack of a personal greeting and generic wording. Even the disclaimer at the bottom is placed conveniently to give the email some authority. This email is playing on your weakness for more money. It states you can verify the email by clicking the two links in blue – clicking these links will lead you to a dangerous website.
Figure B is a safely captured screenshot of the dangerous website these links will lead you to. It is a fake news website created to trick you. Clicking anywhere on this page will lead to an attack on your computer and personal information.
As much as we would all love to be given a large sum of money by a stranger via email it is just extremely unlikely. Don’t be fooled by this one – online money giveaway scams are a guaranteed way to put you in a dangerous position.
Just in Australia, Scamwatch released a report stating Australians lose $45 million to scams in 2015. Don’t you be one of those people, protect yourself and delete this email from your inbox straight away.
Steph Kent
MailShark
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