The biggest tip off with these scams is the "click the link provided". Especially coupled with the "suspicious activity so we closed your account". All my other legit accounts say specifically to go directly to their website without clicking anything in any emails.

They do appear official sometimes. crazy hooligans.

@EdnaLegume: Choose a good password would tip me off. It's way too casual sounding. Most of the time websites request you choose a strong password, which sounds more professional and exact to me than just good.

I received one of these many moons ago, back when "teen" was still part of my age, and not part of things I complain about regularly. Since I rarely read emails themselves(my Gmail is hovering around 5500 unread in my inbox), but just concern myself with their subjects, I saw it said my paypal account was closed/suspended. I immediately went to paypal and logged in. Everything was fine. So I went back and read the email. Only then did I realize it was a scam. I right clicked the link and saw the page it took me to was a spoof, because why would PayPal use an Angelfire website to confirm my password?

Sadly, these e-mails DO fool people. Happened to an acquaintance of mine. She mentioned the e-mail saying someone had hacked her account, paypal shut it down, and that she had to go thru and verify all her information again to reactivate things.

I screamed from the top of my lungs CALL YOUR BANK! CANCEL YOUR CARDS! PUT A FRAUD ALERT ON YOUR CREDIT REPORT!

I think she had a few fraudulent charges, maybe $500 worth but it could of been much worse.

@JohnnyUtah_GitEmSteveDave: duh, 5500 unread??? I use archive like it's going out of style, I only have active items in my inbox, and I don't know what the word unread means. I'd have a heart attack if I saw your inbox...heh.

Fraud site appears to be down as of this morning.

The best information is still the thing that was hammered into our heads since the onset of all these fraud sites. Go to the KNOWN site address (amazon.com) and login to your account. If everything looks fine, great. If you're still worried, find a customer service number on the site and call them.

This would only be convincing to anyone who's never heard of a phishing scam before. The phony phraud alert is the most common guise they come in!

I suppose for the 1% of your readership who don't know this, it's good to know.

@katstermonster: 5593 right now. Most of the unread showing up on the front page are either announcements of stupid twitter spam followers, forwarded e-mail from another account, and e-mails telling me about deals on wormer and fly-control.

Email from Amazon always comes from Amazon.whateverdomain (uk, au, ca, etc) and they host everything on site, in my experience.

@K-Bo: Usually there's plenty of broken english or bad grammar in there but this one looks pretty good. I do agree with you though that some of the phrasing is suspect.

@JohnnyUtah_GitEmSteveDave: I was about to say good god, angelfire is still around?? but then I caught the "many moons ago" part of the comment.

Rather convincing would be "xyz.amazon.com" or "amazon.com/xyx." A completely different domain name (even though it has "amazon" in it) is NOT convincing.

And Abdul Hakeem? Really? Jeff Bezos might sound convincing, but Abdul Hakeem throws a red flag in your face (unless you frequent [india.amazon.com]).

I received this yesterday. If it was really Amazon contacting me, the email would most likely contain a personalized greeting, since they know who I am from my account info.

@Don't take anything aaron8301 says seriously: Yeah that jumped out at me too. Seems like he was setting himself up in case of a phone conversation so the caller would expect an accent. Probably one of those things where the fake site gets your number and the scammer calls later to squeeze more info out, possibly SS# or bank information.

LOL @ the fake rep's name. Good one!