Pat Gaudette

Like millions of other online shoppers, I buy from Amazon.com. So, receiving an email confirming an order doesn’t set off any red flags… except when the email is sent to an email address that I don’t use for online shopping.

From: “order-update@amazon.com” <order-update@amazon.com>
To:
Subject: Amazon.com – Your Confirmation (5394-293000-953765)

Dear Customer,

Your order has been successfully confirmed. For your reference, here`s a summary of your order:

You just confirmed order #8845-68025-58463

Status: CONFIRMED

_____________________________________________________________________

ORDER DETAILS
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

_____________________________________________________________________

Because you only pay for items when we ship them to you, you won`t be charged for any items that you cancel.

Thank you for visiting Amazon.com!

———————————————————————
Amazon.com
Earth`s Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com
———————————————————————

Looks legitimate, right? Well, not really since the “Order Details” link goes to thopathopa.com.np and not Amazon.com. A Google search shows that this is a fairly new email threat, sometimes with a zip file attached, sometimes linking to a site such as the one above.

The biggest problem with this type of email is that of the millions sent, many will be opened or clicked because the recipient believes it is being sent by Amazon.

Before clicking on any link in any email, “mouse” over the link and see where it’s really going. It’ll only take a second and could save hours or days of heartache. And those attachments? Delete them. If you’ve placed an order through Amazon, go directly to Amazon and log into your account to check the order status.