Think before filling in that convenient flight refund form with all your delicious details – there's a scam going about
- Reference: 1586962752
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/15/flight_refund_email_scam/
- Source link:
The scam itself is very simple and relies on current fears, some real, that airlines are [1]reluctant to give refunds to customers who cannot fly because of the global coronavirus shutdown.
It works by offering a fake flight refund form via email. Targets are encouraged to enter their names and credit card details. Instead of sending those details to an airline, however, the personal and financial data is sent directly to criminals.
Mimecast told The Register it had picked up some of the scam emails from its routine monitoring.
[2]
[3]
Click to enlarge
"Because there's so much talk in the media about flight cancellations and refunds, criminals have switched those kind of tactics to phishing emails," Kiri Addison, Mimecast head data scientist for threat intelligence & overwatch, told us.
She described the form, warning how personal data entered into it could be abused: "They can see all the personal information: phone numbers, email addresses, credit card payment card details, anything they can use themselves, anything they can sell on the dark web. [It's] stuff they can use for future phishing attacks too."
Topical email scams are a persistent threat, and the con artists behind them broadly follow current affairs and news trends in the hope of tricking innocents into parting with valuable personal data that can be abused to extract money.
Email scams are as old as, well, email. A common lure is for crims to [4]pose as the tax authorities . It's lucrative "business" too: last year a report reckoned that [5]fraudsters made $300m a month in 2018 from Americans alone . Some scams are fairly sophisticated as well, including one spotted in 2017 that picks up old email conversations from the Gmail sent items folder and plants malware disguised as [6]previously trusted attachments being re-sent.
Mimecast's Addison added: "If someone's fallen for a scam like this one, they're a good target for future scams." ®
Sponsored: [7]Choosing A Low-Code Vendor
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52105526
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/04/15/mimecast_flight_scam_email_2.jpg
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/04/15/mimecast_flight_scam_email.jpg
[4] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/21/uk_tax_fraud/
[5] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/17/email_scammers_earn_more_than_300m_per_month_by_targeting_us_businesses/
[6] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/16/phishing_attack_probes_sent_mail/
[7] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8579/choosing-a-low-code-vendor?td=wptl1936
Re: EEK
just to piss on your hopes a bit, I requested a refund immediately after they cancelled my flight, and they emailed me to confirm it would take up to 7 working days. That was about 4 weeks ago, and instead of this 7-days-tops refund, they keep sending me an e-mail (once a week) to confirm they're on the ball and please please please please bear with us [because it took 1 minute to take my money, and takes 4 weeks to get it back, and counting]. That said, I'm already half-through my charge back letter to my bank which might, just MIGHT get me that refund anyway. Not that I would trust my bank more than I trust wizzair. And two other cases: my wife, who applied for a refund on her flights got information from wizzair it's gonna take at least 6 weeks. So what it's legally 14 days - sue us!
In short: they're all playing for time, apparently, over the last couple of weeks, there's been a rather intense lobbying campaign in the UK, by the operators, towards the UK gov, to change the law somehow so that they don't have to, by law, issue refunds, but can, legally, offer a mandatory "voucher". Which would be as good as shit for those people, who took similar vouchers last year, when Thomas Cook was in trouble, and then promptly collapsed. Apparently they were told to (...).
That said, with mass refunds, on top of current, indefinite no-fly disaster, airlines will start collapsing like dominos, and then, guess which airline's gonna stay around, having picked what's left of competition for one quid, etc.? Yeah, there's ONE airline that always comes "bottom of the bottom" in all reviews...
Re: EEK
> Yeah, there's ONE airline that always comes "bottom of the bottom" in all reviews...
Yeah, but dumbasses STILL keep flying on them, so they're still in business. People have nothing to blame except their own greed.
EEK
Ryan Air finally cancelled some of our holiday flights overnight and I filled out the refund form this morning. While I had I'd done the obvious checks that the link was Ryanair and so on, for a few second on reading the headline I did think "Oh Pants".
One quick re-check later and it was Ryan Air, but a timely reminder to all to always check carefully...