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Alert to AlertPay Phishing

publication date: Dec 12, 2006
 | 
author/source: Terry Robson Silver IT Club
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I got this today.

Thank you for opening an AlertPay account!

You have initiated a transaction to add funds to your AlertPay account. This is to inform that your transaction is currently in a pending state, estimating 1-2 business days to process. We have been unable to verify your personal details and awaiting confirmation from your credit card processing center. These funds will be added to your AlertPay account's Available Balance and will be ready for use.
Your transaction details are listed below. Attached to this message are your personal and credit card details as submitted during the transaction and not shown here for security reasons.

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Transaction Details
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Date: December, 04 2006 12:24:18 PM
Reference Number: 770241
Confirmation Code: Y2l430bCMF3
Balance Currency: GBP
Amount: 225.00 

Thank you for using AlertPay!
The AlertPay Team

For a start I don’t have an AlertPay account so it must be a phishing attempt.  If I did have an AlertPay account I might have jumped except that the so-called transaction details don’t tell me anything useful at all.

I put the phrase AlertPay account scam into Google and the very first link was an AlertPay site warning against a series of such phishing attempts. This site is well worth a look especially if you are an AlertPay user.

www.alertpay.com/SiteSecurityCenter.aspx

Sometimes there is a link in these emails but AlertPay say never click on an email link that purports to take you to AlertPay site they would never communicate with you in this way.

Typical subject lines are

Email Subject: Congratulations, AlertPay Transaction #7500606480 started!
Email Subject: **CONFIRMATION OF PAYMENT**
Email Subject: **PENDING APPROVAL**

Mine must have been a new angle.  The email subject was

TRANSACTION-Status: PENDING. DD 770241

Be very careful. I didn’t open the attachment and I deleted the email.