An email currently hitting inboxes may fool unwary users into visiting a suspect website by claiming that they have unread mail from Apple.
The email includes the Apple logo and purports to be from Apple Support. It even includes seemingly legitimate Apple copyright and contact details in the footer.
The email urges you to click a “Read Now” link to access your unread messages.
However, the email is not from Apple and the there is no unread mail waiting for you at the end of the link.
Instead, the link opens a decidedly dodgy spam website that tries to sell you “miraculous” health pills of various types.
The pills offered are basically a modern day equivalent of snake oil and certainly will not do what they claim to do. And, you certainly should not trust your credit card details or other personal information with the people who sell such products.
Spammers have used this “unread mail” tactic repeatedly. They have used the names of several high profile companies, including Google, Facebook, and eBay. If you receive one of these emails, just hit the delete key.
An example of the scam email:
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
