Lost $200 to a fake antivirus renewal email last month

I got an email that looked exactly like my Norton renewal notice. Same logo, same font, even listed my old license number. I clicked the link and paid $200 for a 2 year plan without thinking twice. Turns out it was a phishing site that copied everything perfectly. My bank flagged the transaction as suspicious 3 days later. I got my money back but it took 2 weeks of calls. Has anyone else gotten fooled by these really well done fake renewal emails?

2 comments

2 Comments

felix3857d ago

Man, that's rough. I almost fell for one of those fake McAfee renewal emails a couple years back. It was scary how real it looked, same green color scheme and everything. The thing that tipped me off was the email address, it was something like mcafee.billing.support.randomnumbers @ gmail instead of the official domain. Now I just go straight to the company's website and log into my account there, never click a link in an email about payments.

parkerrodriguez7d ago

Staying safe online really comes down to being careful with those little details. I read a piece recently that said scammers are getting better at mimicking the official logos and even the layout of real company emails now. The best advice I saw was to hover over any link without clicking it, because the real URL will pop up and you can see if it looks fishy. It's a small habit but it has saved me a couple of times.