Northwestel Inc. warns against scam
Northwestel Inc. customers may be receiving the following email warning message this week.
DAWSON CITY – Northwestel Inc. customers may be receiving the following email warning message this week.
It’s a phishing spam and should be ignored, according to Northwestel techs contacted Monday.
The memo is more sophisticated than many of its type. There are no obvious errors of spelling or syntax, and the logo is a convincing copy of the actual Northwestel logo.
The message warns that the user’s mailbox is nearly full and recommends upgrading storage capacity by clicking on the hotlink provided.
Don’t do that.
A quick check on the sender’s email reveals that the memo did not come from the company, unless it is trying out a new email address: walshfruitandveg@eircom.net.
Northwestel advises that any information of this sort would be communicated by telephone or by an actual letter.
Here is the text of the memo:
“Dear Northwestel.net user,
“The capacity consumption of the mailbox is less than 0.9%. Incoming messages are delayed. We recommend that you use the upgrade button below to upgrade to a higher capacity storage. Immediate Upgrade “Copyright © 2020, NorthwesTel and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.”
An email from the same bogus return address purports to be to customers of the Northwest Community Credit Union and invites the reader to click on a hotlink in order to access their eStatement.
The company is an actual credit union based in Eugene, Ore.
Once again, it appears to be the genuine item until you check the actual return address.
Comments (8)
Up 0 Down 0
YukonMax on Sep 9, 2020 at 6:46 am
It's a matter of trust. How many people allow Northwestel and or Yukon Energy to just pay themselves out of their bank account automatically? I would never.
So I have been using Yahoo Mail for the past 15 years and the only problems I ever encounter are the internet connection.
Up 5 Down 0
Resident on Sep 8, 2020 at 12:25 pm
The Northwestel and Klondiker addresses are relics from the dial-up age and the only reason they're still online is that it's free money for Northwestel. The minute those servers start costing a dime, they will be shut down.
Up 7 Down 2
JENNIFER GODIN on Sep 6, 2020 at 11:15 am
Karl: this is why I cancelled my Northwestel e-mail. I contacted Northwestel client care and spoke with a representative as I wasn't getting e-mails. By the end of the conversation the representative told me (and they can pull up the transcript) that Yahoo was safer as they can't block spam and fraudulent e-mails. This is supposed to make your customers trust you? I was blown away he said this to me but happy that he did. It is not up to your customers to deal with fraudulent e-mails. Do better.
Up 7 Down 0
David Anderson on Sep 4, 2020 at 9:01 am
My Opinion, the vast majority of scam emails I receive have grammatical errors. I expect this is the experience of most people.
Up 12 Down 6
My Opinion on Sep 3, 2020 at 3:54 pm
I don't believe this nonsense that scammers miss spell and have logo's that look wrong. Why would they???? They can cut and paste, spell check, grammar check. There are talented scammers out there and they can dupe you quite easily. It is our providers that should be protecting us. Not our Sherlock Holmes abilities.
Up 23 Down 5
Rob on Sep 3, 2020 at 9:15 am
Isn’t this ironic...Northwestel has been bending Yukoners over for years with the insane rates and slow service!
Up 19 Down 4
Karl on Sep 2, 2020 at 4:30 pm
Who uses NWTel e-mail these days when there are free alternatives that do a better job of actively filtering this crap out. Don't see too many scams in my Gmail account.
Up 27 Down 6
Thomas Brewer on Sep 2, 2020 at 2:38 pm
Helpful information in this article would be some education on how to tell if an email is coming from the purported sender. There are many platforms people use to retrieve their email, and therefore there are many ways to check who the actual sender is, but here's a link to start people searching for information themselves.
https://frsecure.com/blog/is-that-sender-for-real-three-ways-to-verify-the-identity-of-an-email/