BEWARE: Wells Fargo & Zelle Fraudulent Email
Have you ever received an email that you’re not sure about?
RECOMMENDATION: Don’t click on it.
I thought I’d share some information today, since the last time something like this happened to me, I shared it and that post, Beware of Craiglist Scams, has brought a lot of traffic to our site.
Therefore, I wanted to warn you of another SCAM that I just saw today.
The Wells Fargo & Zelle Email Scam
I opened my email and saw this:
I was really close to clicking on the “APPROVE PAYMENT” but then looked a little closer:
If the email isn’t from Wells Fargo (or whoever the email says it’s from within the content) DON’T CLICK ON IT!
This email was from “specialupdate@security.usmail.com”
If you’ve seen fraudulent emails like this, share them below in the comments so we can all be made aware.
I did a bit more research and found these good suggestions on what to do with fraudulent emails and phishing scams:
How Do I Recognize a Fraudulent Email?
Scammers & phishers have lots of different tactics, but there are some pretty easy signs which will help you recognize a phishing email or text message.
Hazard #1: The scam email or text message looks like it’s from a company you know and trust.
Like the example above, the email had the Wells Fargo logo and look fairly normal.
A bank, a credit card company, a social networking site, an online payment website or app, or an online store: these are some of the common businesses scammers will use.
Hazard #2: The fraudulent email or text message will tell a story to bate you to click on something or “sign in.”
Notice the details of this email:
Approve Payment.
It also shows this:
And then this:
And finally this:
All of these are subtle calls to action to get me to click through and either get a code on my computer or “log in” with my banking information.
Hazard #3: The scam email isn’t even addressed to me directly.
While, at a glance, this email might look real, it’s not.
The scammers who send these emails obviously don’t have anything to do with the companies they pretend to be.
Phishing emails can have real consequences for people who give scammers their information.
They can also hurt the reputation of the companies they’re spoofing.
Beware of them!
Conclusion
If you’ve received an email like this one, report it. The information you give can help fight the scammers.
Here are the steps.
Step 1. If you got a phishing email, forward it to the Anti-Phishing Working Group at reportphishing@apwg.org. If you got a phishing text message, forward it to SPAM (7726).
Step 2. Report the phishing attack to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint.
Hope this helps.
Let us know about scams you’ve seen in the comments below.
Do You Need an Email Newsletter?
Email Marketing is, or should be, an important part of every business owners efforts to connect with their clients, remind them about products or services, and keep them in the loop of upcoming events.
There are quite a few different email autoreponders in the market. When I first started internet marketing Constant Contact was the email autoresponder I decided to use. It wasn’t a bad product at all, but I didn’t really understand the true value of email marketing and probably didn’t use it as well as I could have. I was also new to a lot of the “code” stuff like HTML and didn’t really understand how to make my email campaign look similar to my website.
Since that first trial, I’ve been testing other email newsletter options. One is Get Response and another is AWeber.
I’ve done quite a bit of research and here’s a bit of info on what I found out about these two email autoresponders:
The Pros and Cons of Aweber and Get Response:
AWeber
Pros:
- Customer Support: Aweber is great at customer support: they’re thorough and helpful
- Feedback: Aweber allows unsubscribers of your email list to fill out feedback form
- Testing: Aweber encourages you to create an A/B test campaign
- Analytics: Aweber offers Google Analytics integration to keep track of stats
Cons:
- No picture hosting! This means that if you want to have pictures in your email campaign, you’ll have to host them at a place like Flickr.com – which can be a pain if you’re new to HTML.
Get Response
Pros:
- User Friendliness: Get Response has flexible and easy-to-use templates and an email editor for simple email creation
- Customer Support: Get Response has thorough and helpful customer support
- Reports: Get Response provides comprehensive reports analyzing subscriber actions
- Picture Hosting: Get Response allows 1 GB of picture hosting – that’s a ton!
- Testing: Get Response lets you to create A/B test campaigns
- Analytics: Get Response integrates with Google Analytics
- Flexibility: Get Response email templates are incredibly flexible
Cons:
- I really couldn’t find any cons yet, although I’ll continue looking and keep you posted.
Here’s a cool video about creating a newsletter with Get Response:
Try Get Response!
I’ll continue to test but up to this point, I recommend Get Response.
Which email autoresponder do you prefer?
Don’t Let Email Slow Down Your Online Business
Do you get so many emails that you don’t have time to really focus on anything else?
Are you sick of getting SPAM or stupid forwards from your family and friends that simply waste valuable time?
I read an article quite a while back on Zen Habits stating the author was ditching email all together; at the time I was honestly like – “Yeah right!”
As of today, though, I’m seriously considering ditching my email too.
But, thanks to Google and a few other cool online tools, I’m considering a couple options before I throw email to the curb:
- Use Twitter for all correspondence. Leo Babauta from Zen Habits uses Twitter for the majority of his communication. Here’s why:”What I love about Twitter is that it’s very limited (140 characters), so you have to keep things brief, and also there isn’t the expectation that you’ll respond to every message, as there is in email. Friends can DM me on Twitter for personal communication.”
Another great thing about Twitter is that, if you don’t want to get messages from specific people, you can block them or just not follow them.
- Set up a Gmail Account!
Gmail is always coming out with cool new functions. One I discovered today is Priority Mail. Check out this cool video:
Here are a few more details from the Gmail Team:
Get through your email faster
Try reading and replying to the messages in the “Important and Unread” section first. Mark anything that requires follow-up with a star, then go through the “Everything Else” section. If you leave Priority Inbox, you can return to it by clicking the link next to Inbox on the side navigation of Gmail.
How it works
Gmail’s servers look at several types of information to identify the email that’s important to you, including who you email and chat with most, how often you email with these people, and which keywords appear frequently in the emails you read.
Train Priority Inbox
If Priority Inbox makes a mistake, you can use the 
buttons to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important, and Priority Inbox will quickly learn what you care about most.
And more…
- Customize Priority Inbox: You can change what type of email you see in each section (like switching the “Important and Unread” section to just “Important”). Just click on the section headers or visit the Priority Inbox tab under Settings to customize.
- Use filters to guarantee importance: If you want to be absolutely sure that some messages are always marked as important (like email from your boss), you can set up a filter and choose “Always mark it as important.”
- Search by importance: If you want to see all the messages that have been marked as important, both read and unread, do a Gmail search for “is:important.”
- Switching back to your old inbox: If Priority Inbox isn’t for you, you can easily switch back to your normal inbox by clicking “Inbox” on the left or hide Priority Inbox altogether from Gmail Settings.
To learn more about managing your email with Priority Inbox, check out the Gmail Help Center.
So, set up a Gmail Account and save yourself some time!
Why aren’t you using Gmail yet?