"We are jewish...."

Post scam emails to warn other rental owners, or if you are not sure if an enquiry is genuine, put it up here and see what others think.
Gettingthere
Posts: 236
Joined: Mon Nov 17, 2008 11:33 am
Location: Devon
Contact:

"We are jewish...."

Post by Gettingthere »

Just thought I should flag this one up as the phishing is getting cleverer.

The enquiry came supposedly through VRBO who I don't advertise with, but I am on OD so I thought, well maybe. The message said:
We are jewish and we would love to book your property for next year's Hanukkah ( starting December 6th) for a full 2 weeks. Is it available? Please let me know.
I know it is a busy period, but maybe we can arrange something.

Thank you, Jacob Jackson!
So a few flags to start with.
-Lower case J in Jewish.
-Hunnikah is 12th Dec next year, but was 6th last year.
-mention of "your property" rather than anything specific like its name or location or the fact that it's a house.

Anyway for "fun" I hit the 'respond in your dashboard' link which opened up an extremely authentic looking <my email provider> login, including the picture/icon I use on my account. I put in a fake password and it then took me to a supposed VRBO dashboardwhich didn't operate properly. But of course by then they would have harvested your email password.

So just a warning for us all to be careful out there!