Locust Police Department issued the following announcement on Jan. 20.
We at the Locust Police Department could spend days giving warnings of the different varieties of scams that occur over the phone, social media, or email. This morning Chief Shew received an email scam attempt that involved a realistic looking Amazon purchase email that he had not made. This scam involved nothing to click which would have caused a virus or other type of “phishing” however did list a phone number multiple times referring to it one time as being for their “fraud department” if the purchase was not valid. You can see in the attached screenshot how legitimate the email may have seemed at first glance.
Although there are multiple red flags that could be pointed out with the email Chief Shew received, the popularity of Amazon purchasing combined with our natural sensitivity to being “hacked” and our fear of money being fraudulently taken could result in the impulse to call the “fraud department” number on the email which would be how the perpetrator would scam you out of personal and financial information or money.
The best practice when receiving any email for a purchase or order you did not make is to exit the email, go to your preferred internet search engine for the official website, check your account on the site if you have one, or verify the contact info for the business or their fraud department. When in doubt however, always assume it is a scam attempt. You never go wrong with the “better safe than sorry” approach.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Locust Police Department
