According to this email, which purports to be from the Google Notification Service, “3 broken emails has been found and recovered” within your account.
Supposedly, you can click links in the message to view these “broken emails”.
However, Google did not send the message and clicking will not open any emails, broken or otherwise.
Instead, clicking opens a scam website that promises the chance to win various tech products such as iPhones in exchange for completing surveys and supplying your name and contact details.
The scam website you are taken to may vary depending on your location and other factors. The sites will share the information you supply with third-party marketing companies who will then flood you with unwanted phone calls, emails and text messages promoting a range of dodgy products and services.
Some versions try to trick you into disclosing your credit card details, ostensibly to cover the delivery fee for a “free” product you have “won”.
These websites should not be trusted with your personal and financial information.
Note that similar fake notification emails that pretend to be from Google are phishing scams designed to steal your email account login credentials.
If one of these emails crosses your inbox, just hit delete.
A screenshot of the spam email:
Transcript:
Google Notification Service
Recovery Service Report:3/14/2020
3 broken emails has been found and recovered.We hope you found this message to be useful. However, if you’d rather not receive future e-mails of this sort, please opt-out here.
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
