I got an email today in which I was asked to sign in or my email will be deactivated. Is this a scam? The email mentioned that my Hotmail email account will be deactivated in 24 hours because of several unsuccessful login attempts. Is this a scam?
Felisha Shaw
It’s not very difficult to identify an email scam – in your case, it looks like a phishing attempt. So here is a little exercise. Let’s see if you can spot the elements by which I’ve arrived at the conclusion that this ‘Hotmail account will be deactivated because of unsuccessful login attempts’ doesn’t originate from the legitimate Windows Live Hotmail service.
Sponsored Links
Hotmail account will be deactivated within 24 hours message
Below is the full email Felisha had received. I’ve changed it at a couple of places (removed her actual Hotmail username).
Dear [USERNAME-REMOVED]@hotmail.com,
This e-mail has been sent to you by Hotmail to inform you that your account will be deactivated within the next 24 hours due to several unsuccessful login attemps on your account.
To prevent this to happen please login securely to our activation link below:
http://www.hotmail.com/vrf/configlog&torec=[USERNAME]@hotmail.com011mzApw&usrverif=1973289
If you have already confirmed your information then please disregard this message.
Regards,
WindowsLive Hotmail Team
© 2010 Windows Live inc.
I have no doubts that this is a scam because:
- The message doesn’t address the account holder by name. Rather, the email address is used to greet the recipient. Any legitimate email messages from the Hotmail service will address you by your name and not the email address. As you know, all subscribers are required to provide their names when they make a Hotmail email account.
- Note the spelling of ‘attemps’. Do you think Hotmail would send messages with spelling errors?
To prevent this to happen please login…
– horrendous English.- The web address in the message does look like one from the Hotmail web site, right? It actually points to a spoof web site. You can confirm this by checking the status bar.
FYI, anyone with even a little knowledge of HTML can create a web link that points to an unrelated topic; the URL doesn’t need to match the anchor text. For instance, the link below looks like one from Yahoo, but will actually take you to Google. Why don’t you check this out yourself? Click on the link below:
www.yahoo.com
Carrying this thought forward – NEVER click on a link in an email message which you are not sure about. It’s always better to copy the link and then paste it in a new browser window/tab. - As far as I know, “Windows Live inc.” doesn’t exist. The Hotmail (and Windows Live) services are owned by Microsoft.
- And why would anyone spell inc. with a small ‘i’?
Conclusion: The email you’ve received with a threat of deactivation of Hotmail account in the next 24 hours because of unsuccessful login attempts is a fraudulent message. To identify email scams and phishing attacks, go through the message contents properly. Never click any link in a suspicious email. You can always copy/paste the same in a new browser window.
I fell into this scam and now it won’t let me sign into my email address.
The same happened to me. It is DEFINITELY spam. Unfortunately, I fell for it and the spammer hijacked my Hotmail account, including my contact list and sent out tons of solicitation letters (in my name) asking for funds, telling them I’m in Spain and urgently need money. One should NEVER give out password or other personal info. We all learn the hard way. My account is now lost for good and blocked.
Yes, definitely spam. I had Fallen for that urgent message and now my account is blocked and it’s probably lost forever with all it’s contents.
My old email addr Ainsworths@hotmail.com was blocked due to this scam. I feel terrible, usually I’m the individual that is always protecting & pointing out the scams to others. Then I fall for this because I didn’t take the time to read my email. I guess it’s true everyone needs to be on their guard & watch out for new tricks.
I read this in email today and I was 70% sure it was phishing. However I did a web search second, (Hence why I’m here).
The first thing I did was check the date it was sent. Two days had passed, & I logged in fine, so it is fake, but I still did the search, as it was done really well (graphics & formatting).
Also, what I didn’t understand was why I needed to re-activate my account if the login attempts were unsuccessful? If people are trying to get into my account & can’t- that’s good! If I’m trying & can’t- I wouldn’t have seen this message.
Thumps up to these guys for a good attempt. They are so much better than the guys that go straight to my junk mail.
Bigger kudos to you guys, the writer’s of this article. Good work, especially identifying their mistake I didn’t see. (I’m real bad at English)
Thanks again.
Your email was not actually lost after it was hijacked. Not sure if you went to support and clicked on the ‘my email has been hijacked link. It’s best to do that right after because your information may still be the same.
Anyhow, I received this email today and felt iffy, so I did some research about this. And after reading this article, looks like my gut feeling was right. Glad I did not click on the link. For one, if a person had unsuccessful login attempts on their account, Hotmail would not deactivate the account, but make it inaccessible for a certain amount of hours. Glad I read this email through and thoroughly.
Thanks again for this article.
@Jessie and everybody out there
Never click on a link in a suspicious email. You can always copy/paste it in the browser address bar and then analyse it.