A common email scam starts with a message, stating you made a purchase, when you truly didn’t. The Thank-You-for-Your-Purchase Scam may appear to come from Microsoft or any number of well-known companies. Click here or here to view some examples of this scam.
$500 for “Microsoft Windows Defender Firewall Online”? Many people will miss that that doesn’t make much sense, nor does the From: address. The panic from an unwanted $500 credit card charge often causes people to jump for the phone, but please don’t call or respond to this message! Also do not click any links inside the email. Remain calm and recognize this for the ploy that it is.
The bad guys want you to pick up the phone and dial that shady number. They want you to ask for a refund, because once you ask for anything, they’ll try to manipulate and feed you more false info. If the caller cooperates, they stand to lose a lot of money through remote control trickery. And if a caller wises up and ends the phone call, the cybercriminals will snag the phone number from their CallerID. They inevitably share that info with other scammers, which leads to more scam calls later on.
It’s best to disregard this email, if you get it. Just delete it. If you need further peace of mind, simply call your credit card company and talk to them about it. Review your statements and you’ll see that this charge never happened.
I’ve written about many different flavors of this scam. Familiarity will help you dodge these, so please check out my other blog posts:
- Apple App Store Purchase Scam
- The Norton Auto-Renewal Scam
- The Geek Squad Scam
- The Microsoft 365 Renewal Scam
- Accidental Payment Scams
- The Hybrid Paypal Scam
- The McAfee Renewal Scam
- The Bitcoin Purchase Scam
- The Microsoft 365 Renewal Scam, v2.0
- The Amazon Purchase Scam
- The Best Buy Purchase Scam
And one last thing: if you or someone you know has fallen victim to one of these scams, I am here to advise and help. Please reach out to me for advice or remote support!
It’s amazing how many people fall for this kind of scam. Just the name is questionable – “Harmelink”??? The grammar is terrible, which is a big red flag. Jessse – your “scam antennae” are always working. Thanks so much!
I’ve heard of a million scams, and can easily see them for what they are. So when I got the first ‘thank you for your purchase’ scam, I disregarded it. As I did for the next 30 over a couple weeks. But I had never seen them before, and became worried that someone had opened a credit card in my name.
I still haven’t responded. And hoping you’re info above is true…that it is a scam. (fingers crossed)
They are almost always scams, but if you ever have a doubt, call your bank or credit card company, using the phone number on their statements. You can get more peace of mind by having a conversation with them about the email you just received!
Jesse,
Your responses are spot on.
I just got off the phone with a PayPal Manager regarding the new (or old) thank you for your purchase scam with an attachment. You never open the attachment but when I went to look up the email address there was a whole menu of over 100 people and emails. The sender must be new to scamming. You never want anyone to have a client list, whether your a fraud or not. But your advice to check with your bank is spot on. Most people don’t know that the banks work for us, or at least they used to. I will continue to review your responses because you’ve shown scams I didn’t even know existed…!
Everyone should thank you!!
Regards,
Bill B
I appreciate your kind words, Bill. Glad to hear you’re staying safe. Please do dive into my blog, if you find it useful. Every scam I write about is something that I’ve encountered in the wild or helped a customer with. I meet up with a new scheme every month, it seems!
At first when I got these emails, I was; What the what?????!!!! I realized it was a scam and thankfully didn’t respond. The whole; Thank you for your order, dear, is just wayyy too creepy for me. I don’t open and I have the ultimate power! I hit delete!!!! My advice, don’t ever open anything you don’t recognize and delete immediately.