Closure of Hotmail account: phishing scam example

I’ve received an email from the Hotmail Team (pilsbryi@hotmail.com) with the subject “Closure of Hotmail Account!!!”. I’ve been asked to provide my name, password, date of birth, country/territory. Is this valid or a scam?
Richard Abraham

This is most definitely a phishing scam and should be junked right away. Select the message, click “Mark as” and choose the “Phishing scam” from the drop down menu – refer image below. Once you’ve done that, continue reading to find out how I immediately identified this ‘Closure of Hotmail account’ as a scam.

Hotmail scam: email with subject “Closure of Hotmail account!”

It’s kind of obvious from the sender’s address that the email you’ve received is a phishing message – it looks suspicious and just doesn’t seem genuine. As you know, anyone can make a Hotmail account; and at sign up, subscribers are given a choice of selecting hotmail.com, live.com or a country specific domain name (hotmail.co.uk).

Just because the email address ends in hotmail.com doesn’t mean it comes from the Hotmail team!

Also the email subject is so very lame – “Closure of Hotmail Account!!!” Do you think a professional company like Microsoft would send an email with a subject ending in three exclamation marks?

How to identity Hotmail scam emails

In addition to the points above, there are other ways to identify Hotmail scam emails. Actually the tips below are applicable to any phishing message.

• Generally, a scam message will not be addressed to anyone in particular. The email will either start with something like “Dear Hotmail user” or “Dear [ACCOUNT-USERNAME]”. It’s unlikely that the phishers know your real name and hence, they address you by the email username.
  Important: Hotmail knows your first and last name because you had provided these at the time of creating the Hotmail account. All legitimate email from the service will address you by name.
• If you are one of the lucky subscribers whose Hotmail login ID is the same as your first name, the phishing email may seem more genuine. Don’t be fooled and check for other signs.
• The Hotmail service doesn’t send threatening email messages. Yes, it may block account access or prevent you from using the account if it feels that the service was abused in any manner; for example, the Hotmail email quota was exceeded. In such cases, a message is displayed prominently in your inbox or on the Hotmail sign in page.
  Chances of Hotmail blocking or closing the account are rare but may happen to those who continually violate the terms of service.
• An important reason why I think this email is definitely a phishing attack is because it asks for your name, password, date of birth, country/territory etc., details which are already be known to Hotmail.
• Legitimate emails from Hotmail will always be composed in good English with little or no grammatical and spelling errors. I’m quite sure that the ‘Closure of Hotmail account’ email you’ve received is full of such mistakes.
• If you still have doubts, check out Windows Live Help web site and post your concerns in the Hotmail section.

The most important piece of advice is never ever click on an embedded link in a suspicious message.