Email inboxes are currently being hit by ‘Neighborhood Safety Warning’ messages that supposedly warn about pedophiles.
The warning messages claim that you are receiving the information because sex offender activity has been detected in your area. It advises you to click a link ‘if you would like to know who they are, where they live, and how you can protect your family from sexual predators’.
The email purports to be from an organisation called ‘Amber Child Safety’.
However, the emails are not genuine warnings about sexual predators and they are not from any legitimate child safety organisation. In fact, the deceptive messages are just spam designed solely to trick you into visiting a decidedly dodgy ‘Shoppers Dream’ website. The site contains no information of any kind about sexual predators or child safety issues.
The site tries to get you to sign up to receive ‘special offers’ sent directly to your inbox. To subscribe, you are required to provide your name, address, phone number and other personal information. However, clauses in the site’s privacy policy state that your information will be shared with third parties, affiliates, and vendors. Thus you may soon begin receiving emails, phone calls, and letters from various companies intent on selling you various products and services.
The bottom line? This company is willing to use spam campaigns to promote its services. It is also willing to deliberately and wilfully misrepresent itself by claiming that its lure emails are legitimate child safety warnings about sexual predators. Any company that uses such tactics loses all credibility and certainly does not deserve your trust.
If you receive one of these fake pedophile alert emails, just delete it. Note also that similar tactics have been used previously to distribute malware.
Example
Subject: ALERT: Pedophiles in your area
