According to this email, which claims to be from the “Domain Administrator”, you recently made a request to deactivate your email account. Supposedly, this “email de_activation” is “in prgress”.
The email claims that if the request was made accidentally and you have no knowledge of it, you can click a button to cancel the deactivation.
However, the email is not from any legitimate service provider and the deactivation request claim is a lie designed to trick you into visiting a scam website.
Clicking the link takes you to a bogus online form that asks for your email address and email account password. After entering your account credentials, you may see a notification claiming that you have successfully cancelled the deactivation request.
Criminals can now use the information you entered to hijack your email account. Once they have gained access, they can use your account to send spam, scam, and malware emails in your name.
If the same login credentials provide access to linked services such as online storage or app stores, the scammers may also be able to steal personal documents and make purchases via your account.
The criminals may manage to collect enough of your personal and financial information to steal your identity as well.
If you receive one of these scam emails, just delete it. Do not click any links in the email.
A screenshot of the scam email:
Transcript of the scam email:
NOTICE!! indicates that you recently made a request to deactivate email questions@hoax-slayer.com. And this request will be processed shortly.
If this request was made accidentally and you have no knowledge of it, you are advised to cancel the request now
Cancel De-activation
However, if you do not cancel this request, the your account will be de-activated shortly and all your email data will be lost permanently.
Regards.
Email Administrator
This message is auto-generated from E-mail security server, and replies sent to this email can not be delivered.
This email is meant for: [Email Address]
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
