Comments | news: Email Scam Alert

news

Email Scam Alert

Jul 06, 2002 02:02

There seems to be a new email scam targeting LiveJournal users, effectively asking them for their login information by visiting a URL that almost matches "livejournal.com". If you receive this email or any others bearing a similar resemblence, please disregard it entirely, and certainly do not click on the link provided. We do not delete accounts ( Read more... )

Comments 93

suppafly July 5 2002, 23:02:45 UTC

heh yeh the cgi when you click login does an icq web page thing..

Just a thought ... rog July 5 2002, 23:07:53 UTC

... they clearly want people to click the link. Why repost it on the news community and give them even more publicity???

A suggestion, perhaps amend the post to not display the web address, and discourage people from clicking it if they get the email?

Re: Just a thought ... hamsterhuey July 5 2002, 23:10:01 UTC

Awwww.... but i wanna poke the link!!!

Anyway.... the thought of my having not updated in the last 24 hours? *chokes on his spleen in laughter*

Re: Just a thought ... kshandra July 6 2002, 00:24:56 UTC

but i wanna poke the link!!!

Why not poke the penguin instead?

Re: Just a thought ... hamsterhuey July 6 2002, 00:34:28 UTC

muahahahahahaha.... this provides particular amusement to me as druii_42 and I are currently involved in an Epic Color Wars....

*mutters about those idiot Red zealous penguins*

Thread 37

ex_talula_be590 July 6 2002, 00:12:30 UTC

Maybe I misread this- im really inebriated. But wouldn't you think that if they knew enough about livejournal to know that tons of people ask about loosing accounts due to inactivity...enough so to catch the insecurity of all the victimed LJ users who didn't know any better? All I'm saying is that chances are they are going to read this news and figure they're screwed and start up a new scam.. or keep going.. bah. sorry if this isn't coherent. heh.

elfbabe July 6 2002, 00:19:23 UTC

well, I don't think you need to know that much about lj itself to think of this - people do it on instant messaging or email services all the time.

ex_talula_be590 July 6 2002, 00:48:28 UTC

oh yes, this is definately true.. I just wonder off into thinking that someone on the inside is working their way out by trying to corrupt users.. who knows, even some that is big on the support staff or tech crew... anything... that would be sooo wrong...heh. I don't think this because of what they do/don't know about LJ.. I'm just out of it.,

you know... kylara July 6 2002, 03:38:11 UTC

what I would really like to know is... why on earth would anyone want access to our livejournals?! it's not like there's anything super-exciting going on that would really interest anyone except for the usual readers - who see it all anyways...

weirdos, I tell ya.

Re: you know... asciident July 6 2002, 04:04:02 UTC

some might (rightly) guess that many users use the same password for both their livejournal account and their email account.

with their email account, i'm sure they can get into all sorts of other accounts.

or hell, they just might want your journal (if you're paid) to try and "take over", although all users need to do in this case is write to LJ Abuse with details

Re: you know... stinkybum July 6 2002, 05:00:41 UTC

it seems to me the people are trying to recover old user names htat arent active. because htey jsut vant stand the thought of htem sitting there unsed lol

Re: you know... tckma July 6 2002, 06:44:00 UTC

personally I use a different password for my e-mail than I use for LiveJournal. I think, though, if a person is gullible enough to fall for a scam like this then they deserve it. Not that we shouldn't do something about the scammers, but it's pretty easy for a somewhat intelligent person to tell that this is a scam.

As for finding the folks responsible and punishing them, I wonder if someone has informed the LJ staff?

Thread 15

beautybabydoll July 6 2002, 07:14:47 UTC

LOL Haven't updated in a while? I'd never fall for that!

luka91 July 7 2002, 04:12:58 UTC

Well.. anyone who knows anything about Livejournal, would know that..

Still.. there's tons of people hardly knowing their way around Livejournal etc, and how it works, or simply beginners etc.. who might panic..

Now.. that was a fairly easy scam to detect.. (luckily). Stupidly, for several reasons. A lot of LJ users know how LJ works. It's basically the same kind of scam that has been used over and over (a stealth of the scam).

If you were a touch smart, you'd probably be able to scam one heck of a lot of people.

Heck.. a couple of bank robbers (or whatever one should call it) simply put up some kind of box etc, next to a bank, put up a sign on the box where the businessmen etc puts their money at the end of day, which said the box was broken etc, and that they should put the money in the box to the left. And.. well.. people did. Obviously, it's hard to say how much they earned before the scam being discovered since a lot of people being stupid enough to put money in that box, never would admit to it..