Recently my hotmail account junk e-mail filter has been catching some rather ‘Australian-targeted’ spam.
Often with a sender of ‘Thanks for participating!’, ‘Much Thanks!’, the subject lines claim to have a voucher pending for me from an Australian store like Myer, Wollworths or JB-Hi Fi (though I’ve also seen an iPhone one too). The company is MyGiftRewards, and they ask me to click on a very suspicious link to confirm my email address and claim my $500 voucher.
As my favourite Microsoft security guy says “If you don’t think it would happen in real life, why would you believe it in an email?” Unless you have specifically entered a promotion/competition, do you think Woolworths would knock on your door and give you a $500 gift voucher? I don’t think so.
Leave these in the junk mail where they belong .. and don’t go clicking on anything!
P.S. Want to know one of the most obvious signs that these are fake? None of them come from email addresses owned by the Australian companies, or even @mygiftrewards.com/.com.au