Have you Received A Threatening Email Scam to your Business?
Email spam abuse is nothing new, yet still people are tricked into parting with their cash each and every day. One of the latest scams to hit inboxes all over the world is threatening the lifetime blocking of the recipients website and URL. Several people have contacted me already asking if they should be worried.
Heres an example of one such email currently doing the rounds
Hey.
Soon your hosting account and your domain (our website) will be blocked forever, and you will receive tens of thousands of negative feedback from angry people.
Here is a list of what you get if you don’t follow my requirements:
+ abuse spamhouse for aggressive web spam
+ tens of thousands of negative reviews about you and your website from angry people for aggressive web and email spam
+ lifetime blocking of your hosting account for aggressive web and email spam
+ lifetime blocking of your domain for aggressive web and email spam
+ Thousands of angry complaints from angry people will come to your mail and messengers for sending you a lot of spam
+ complete destruction of your reputation and loss of clients forever
+ for a full recovery from the damage you need tens of thousands of dollars
Do you want this?If you do not want the above problems, then before June 1, 2019, you need to send me 0.3 BTC to my Bitcoin wallet:
Should I be Concerned About This?
In short, no. These are largely a generic email spam sent automatically to thousands of recipients at a time. They rely on only having to fool the odd person. Imagine you can send 10,000 emails like this at the click of a button and just 1 person panics and coughs up each time?
What Should I do if I Receive an Email Like This?
If you haven’t already, it’s highly likely you will receive an email like this at some point. I personally get emails just like this on an almost daily basis. Most of them do end up in my spam where they belong, but the ones I do read get ignored promptly. Sometimes it’s not quite as obvious if an email is from a legitimate source. Heres just 2 simple things you can and should do for any email you have concerns about, whether it be a threatening scam email or a suspicious email from your bank, Paypal or similar.
If you’re really concerned and think the email could be fraudulent in nature, you could always consider reporting it here.
Check the Senders Email Address
Here’s an email I received just the other day which is a perfect example. At first glance, you could be fooled into thinking its from an official source from the ICO. Simply hovering over the reply-to field reveals the email address. In this case a Hotmail address, a clear giveaway that its not a reputable business and nothing more than an email scam. You will typically be able to spot a fake paypal email (or similar) very quickly using this simple check.

Verify the Email Content
Another very quick and simple test. Copy/paste the content of the email into a google search. You can immediately see if others are receiving emails with the same content, and if it is listed as a known scam.

For further advice on email issues, website design or SEO, email us at info@arbtalkmedia.co.uk