Scam alert: Beware of phishing emails mentioning names of your club members

Beware! Phishers (people who are “phishing” for information from you (aka scammers), are getting smarter!

They are now visiting websites such as our Villages Clubs, which list board positions. The result can be a realistic-sounding email, which some people fall prey to. An email was recently sent to some members of the Pickleball Club asking for help paying for a vendor, and mentioning specific names of club officers for credibility. David, Sherry, and I are all board members of the Pickleball Club, and Sherry is the treasurer.

Never respond to any email requesting money, a wire transfer, credit card information, or your social security number! Always call the person using their known phone number (not a phone number in the email)!

There are two types of phishers. This one was not so smart and used an obviously fake email – speed123@virginmedia.com. It’s easy for me to know that this is not David’s email.

The smarter ones spoof the senders’ email, like this example:

In this situation, the “From” is your friends’ email, but if you click on it, you will see the “From” and the “Reply-To” are different (see example above). Bob’s real email is bobsmith@comcast.net. The fake email is bobsmith@hotmail.com.

If you receive emails fitting either of these descriptions, report it to your email carrier’s phishing service (or spam if it’s just unwanted junk email). Below is how you report to Gmail, each mail carrier has a method of reporting.

Forward the email to: reportphishing@apwg.org, the Anti-Phishing Working Group which includes ISPs, security vendors, financial institutions, and law enforcement agencies.

You can also report it to the client it came from. After doing this, delete the email. Please resist the urge to respond (difficult I know).
· Gmail – forward to abuse@gmail.com
· Virgin Media – phishing@virginmedia.com
· Comcast – Forward the email to abuse@comcast.net, include the full message headers in the email and in the subject line, type “Phishing email”
· Hotmail or Outlook – abuse@hotmail.com
· Paypal – phishing@paypal.com
· Apple, Mac, iCloud, me (any apple email extension) – reportphishing@apple.com