5ThirtyOne

Derek Punsalan

Media Temple

Warning! Gmail users beware, fake upgrade emails

UPDATE: According to a comment on digg, gmailupgrades.com has been taken down.

Important FYI update for any Gmail users. If you receive the following email in your Gmail account, do not follow the embedded link. With the recent announcement of Google paid Google storage upgrades, the following phishing emails will undoubtedly become more and more the norm.

Fake Gmail email screenshot

Dear Gmail customer
From now if you need more than 2 GB of space use this invitation and upgrade your account to 100 GB of space also you can register one free domain name via this invitation
your account upgrade will done after 24 hours
your invitation code is: http://gmailupgrades.com/Gmail-Account-Upgrade/…/
Thank You
Gmail Support Department

The email From: address is gmail-noreply@google.com. However, the "Mailed-by:" domain is marauder.websitewelcome.com. The link redirects to a website which looks very much like Gmail.

Screenshot of fake Gmail email

If did follow the link and entered your Google Account username and password, immediately visit Google’s Account Management [google.com/accounts/ManageAccount] to change your password. [Digg this]

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47 Comments • RSS

  1. SoftPixel says:

    Crazy enough we just got another bogus email asking for verification on all AdWords accounts. They try and do a pretty good job of masking the URL but if you pay close enough attention the subdomain stands out quite well.

    Several of our clients inquired about this so if you come across any emails from Google double check the address link before you do anything. It’s a shame people will go to this length to rob others.

  2. Jef says:

    Google needs to make it very clear that any mail from google is really from google. Make it look really different so that you can’t copy it. That will solve most of the problems.

    • Matt says:

      Google needs to make it very clear that any mail from google is really from google. Make it look really different so that you can’t copy it. That will solve most of the problems.

      Yes we just need to make web content that can never be copied. Any beginner can make a website with a logo and login and people are stupid enough to enter it. You can’t solve stupidity.

  3. Momentz says:

    Wow that was pretty shifty, the URL made it seem so really.

  4. Brother J says:

    Fake received today, marked as spam in my inbox

    Dear Member,

    We are shutting down some email accounts and your account was automatically chosen to be deleted. If you are still interested in using our email service please fill in the space below for verification purpose by clicking the reply button. Learn more

    Account:
    Password:
    Birth date:
    Country:

    Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.
    Thank you for using Gmail !

    The Gmail Team
    GMAIL

  5. Wayne says:

    Just got the exact same one about them deleting accounts. Pretty sure its a fake. Unprofessional formatting. And Gmail would have tose details anyhoo. Why would I have to provide them again, I’m sure Gmail’s automatic account keeping sytems are much more efficient than this.

  6. andy says:

    Just signed up for adsense and this email arrives:

    We are deleting some accounts and your email was automatically chosen to be deleted. If you are still interested in using our email service please fill in the space below for verification purpose by clicking the reply button:

    User Name:
    Password:
    Occupation:
    Location:

    Verification code: 59cd2e83-7597dce

    Warning!!!! Account details not received within 72hours will be automatically shut down and closed permanently.

    - The Gmail Team

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