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I had a rather interesting email on Monday.
The email claimed to be from UPS and included the official logo and looked legit. Granted I noticed a few things that led me to realize it wasn’t from UPS.
The email was sent to our Life with Pal email address.
The Email
The sender
The email was sent from the following address:
UPS Client Services h0wroop@gmx.com
The Email
The email was pretty conving at first glance. It had UPS official logo and what a typical UPS email looks like.
The delivery of your package is on the way
To: Charles Mcmillan
Delivery Timing Set
23 November 2024
11:30 AM – 6:00 PMDownload receipt › (button)
Ship To
3914 Waterview Lane,Playas,NM
USDelivery Information
Sender’s info: vandpal@lifewithpal.com
Delivery recipient: Charles Mcmillan
UPS Standard
©2024 UPS, its logo, and the color brown are trademarked by United Parcel Service of America, Inc.
How is this a scam email?
The email address isn’t from UPS.com. I also don’t have a shipping account with UPS. So that makes it more suspicious.
What I learned
I took to Google and looked up some info about the email address. The email domain of gmx.com is a real email service.
The address and name of the person that I shipped a product to wasn’t valid.
The name : Charles Mcmillan is common and was associated with a few real people (living and dead). The one that stood out the most was the man who worked for Los Alomos as a nuclear physicist.
The shipping address: 3914 Waterview Lane,Playas,NM US isn’t real from what I found.
There is a Waterview Lane in a few cities but not in New Mexico. Playas New Mexico is a real city.
You can email UPS
You can email UPS about these types of scam emails. i did just that.
You visit the link and follow the prompts. You can include a screenshot of the email as well as adding any comments about the email.
I was went a reply that reads as follows:
Dear Vanessa,
Thank you for forwarding this information to us. The email you received is not a legitimate UPS communication, nor was it sent through or by our system.
Our UPS fraud group is aware of this malicious email. Please do not select any links or open any attachments in the email received, as recipients who open the email and click on link(s) may become vulnerable to malware. Since UPS has all the information we need, we recommend that you permanently delete it.
We appreciate you taking the time to make sure we were aware of the situation. For more information from UPS on protecting yourself against fraud, please visit UPS.com at the address below: www.ups.com/fraudprotection
Sincerely,
Fraud Mitigation
UPS – Global Business Services
You may have to wait a few hours but you do get a reply.
Where’s the scam?
Since this scam email was sent to my business email I figured it was more of a Phishing scam. It could also be a hacking attempt or some sort of malware too. I assume the sender figured someone would click on the download receipt button to view the info. That would allow any malware or other malicious code to be downloaded to your computer or phone.
If you aren’t someone who regularly ships items via UPS this is something to lookout for especially if you are a business.
