PineCone Research Scam Fishing Email

I have been a member of PineCone Research for about 1-2 years now. I am familiar with their surveys and their emails. I recently received a slightly odd email, but figure that it was a new area that PineCone Research is getting into (secret shopper). I should have paid closer attention to the format of the email. I did note that the font in the email was not standard for PineCone Research, plus there were different fonts and font sizes within the email. I brushed this off.

Today, I received the follow up that wanted me to wire about $1,600 to someone and then they would wire me back about $1,800 plus $150 to make up for fees. This is a standard fishing scam! If this was a legitimate offer from PineCone Research, they would wire the money to me first or it would not cost me anything.

Upon further investigation of the follow up email, I noticed the following things "wrong" with it:

• Return address was actually a .org (versus the real .com ending). I found this out by clicking reply and seeing what address came up. Never trust the name that shows up.
• Fonts were different types and sizes
• Header and footer were not standard for PineCone Research emails
• The original email has a misspelling in the Subject line
• The website in the original email no longer loads

PineCone Research has posted a Security Notice.

  

Tweet

Pin It