Outline
Message purporting to be from Gmail claims that the recipient should click a link to read four missed emails.
Brief Analysis
The message is not from Gmail. Links in the message open a spam drug store website that sells pharmaceutical products without the need of a prescription.
Example
Subject: You have 4 missed emails
Gmail
November 7, 2013
Automation Service Reporting:
You have 4 missed emails.
Sincerely,
The Google team
You can also unsubscribe from these emails or change your notification settings.
Need help? If you received this message in error, click not my account.
Detailed Analysis
This message, which claims to be an automated notification message from Gmail, informs recipients that 4 missed emails are waiting to be read. Recipients are invited to click a link to read the missed messages. Other links in the message supposedly allow users to unsubscribe from such notifications, access account settings or read help files.
However, the message is not from Gmail. All links in the email open a dodgy drugstore spam site that tries to peddle all manner of pharmaceutical products.
Those responsible for this spam campaign know that some people tricked into visiting the spam site will stay and buy one or more of its suspect offerings.
Users who buy on the site may or may not actually get the products they ordered. But, if they do get their drugs, they could be significantly risking their health by taking them. Users have no way of knowing if the products they purchase are what they claim to be. And, since users don’t need a prescription to buy them, they might be inadvertently putting their health at risk by taking medicine that is unsuitable for them. It could interfere with other medication users are taking with serious repercussions.
Moreover, it is very risky to trust these outfits with your credit card details. If they are unscrupulous enough to market their products via deliberately deceptive spam messages then they may have no qualms about stealing customer credit card data and misusing it elsewhere. And, these sites often do not even use secure forms for payments.
Given the ongoing effort that the spammers have put into this campaign, it obviously pays off for them. This message is just one variant in an ongoing spam attack that has used the names of several high-profile online entities, including Facebook, Linked-In and Twitter.
If you receive one of these spam emails, do not click on any links that it contains. If you do click a link by mistake, close the spam website immediately.
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
