It’s barely the second month of 2023, and email scams are unfortunately in high swing. For this reason, it’s important to stay educated on the latest scams to avoid becoming a victim.
One new scam is targeting potential Xfinity customers. It’s important to note that Xfinity is not the real sender. Often, scammers use common company names, even stealing or creating look-a-like logos of familiar and established companies to gain trust and make scam emails appear official. A new scam email is circulating encouraging people to update payment immediately. This is a red flag. A major company a person does regular business with will not ask customers to update payment information. Never verify or give out payment information in an email.
Here are five other red flags that this is a scam email:
- The email came from “Service Update billing” – not the actual company (in this case Xfinity.)
- The email was sent to “undisclosed recipients” – not addressed personally.
- The email states that payment was declined and that the credit card company refused payment verification. Independently verified, I know this to be untrue.
- The email contains a tight-timeline and a threat. They say that if I “…don’t make a payment within 24 hours, service will be suspended.”
- They also make several other threats to my service as well, including, suspending me, downgrading me, and not reinstating my account.
The ”scam” email is designed to trick me into panicking and clicking on a link to submit my payment information. Had I done so, I would have put my valuable personal information directly into the scammers hands or risked putting malware onto my computer.
Understand that companies will not send random emails to their customers threatening to terminate, suspend, downgrade, or refuse to reinstate accounts. They will also not ask you to supply or update payment information via casual email.
Be wise. Do not reply to suspicious emails or click on links sent to you. When in doubt over an email’s authenticity, it’s always best to err on the side of caution and delete it. And, if you are sincerely concerned about your account with a business, independently look up the company’s official phone number (never call back a number given to you in an email) and contact them to verify your account status. With so many scam emails out there, it’s important to guard your personal and account information and avoid falling victim to swindlers.
