Google Ad-Words scam

[Darth Wong]

I keep getting these E-mails from someone pretending to be Google:

Our system was unable to process a payment for your outstanding Google AdWords account balance using your primary credit card. For the time being, your account is still open, and your ads are still running. However, we require you to update the payment information in your AdWords account very soon in order to ensure continued ad serving.

Please update your credit card information in order to trigger our billing system to try processing your payment again. If you plan to use the same credit card(s), please use the 'Retry Card' button on the Billing Preferences page of your account. Otherwise, please follow the steps below to update the information in your AdWords account.

1. Log in to your AdWords account at: http://adwords.google.com.session-75248626057575646822.24531221127869105258.ssl86.ru/
2. Click the 'My Account' tab.
3. Click 'Billing Preferences' link.
4. Click Edit next to the appropriate 'Payment Details' section.
5. Enter your new or updated payment information.
6. Click 'Save Changes' when you have finished.

In the future, you may wish to use a back up credit card in order to help ensure continuous delivery of your ads. You can add a back up credit card by visiting your Billing Preferences page or visit the AdWords Help Centre for more.

Tip: You can review the status of your billing on the Billing Summary page, under the 'My Account' tab. If a payment has been declined, click 'Payment Declined' beside the line item to review information for that particular payment. Once your payment has been processed successfully, you can view and print an invoice from your Billing Summary page.

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This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you have any questions, please visit the Google AdWords Help Centre at https://adwords.google.com/support/?hl=en_GB to find answers to frequently asked questions and a 'contact us' link near the bottom of the page. ----------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team

Does anyone know what happens if you click on the (obviously bogus) link they provide in the E-mail? I haven't clicked on it myself.

[Masami von Weizegger]

The information I can find points this towards being a bog standard phishing scam so you'd be taken to a fake Google Adwords site which looks similar to the real one and asked to enter/confirm your details and give it to some nice scam artists who are in need of a financial donation roughly equal to the size of your bank account.

[DaveJB]

I copied and pasted the link into Safari. The page it takes you to looks somewhat like the front page of Google AdSense... if you ignore the corrupted fonts and broken image links. I decided to try and log in with "bob@goatse.cx" as the username and a random string of characters as the password, but that merely took me back to the front page of the scam site, minus the username and password box for some reason.

Either the site's run by a bunch of really incompetent scammers who can't tell that it doesn't work (at least not in Safari), or it's designed solely to steal your Google username and password, which seems a bit odd to me - I'd have thought your bank details were what they'd want.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Incompetence/Non-safari-compliance being a strong possibility... It's also possible they intend to steal your account information, reroute the payments to a different location, and make off with that income.

Admittedly, it's an unlikely outcome, as they specifically demand you verify your main card, and suggest a back up one... but eh.

[Seggybop]

The link URL itself is unique, so through anyone opening it the scammers receive confirmation that the target email address is being actively used and note that for future spam. They may also attempt to deduce further info such as location/ISP from the IP of whoever clicked it. The site itself is a standard phishing attempt where they (poorly) try to replicate the real site to trick people into giving their google login and credit card info.

[Crown]

I keep getting these E-mails from someone pretending to be Google:
<snip>
Does anyone know what happens if you click on the (obviously bogus) link they provide in the E-mail? I haven't clicked on it myself.

I know you're not actually stupid enough to click it, but I would be worried if it's a keylogger link.