Don’t respond to phony e-mail sent to MSN customers requesting personal information

[DevilDog#1]

This is directly from Microsoft.

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If you receive an e-mail message claiming to be from MSN (as shown below) asking you to update “your information” to keep your account from being “deactivated,” please do not respond. This is a hoax designed to steal personal information including your MSN account password, credit card number, mother’s maiden name, date of birth, and Social Security number.

You may receive an e-mail message that looks like this. These e-mail messages are NOT from MSN; they are fake and could result in theft of your money or your identity if you respond to them.


Thieves entice you to click the link in the e-mail which takes you to a phony Web site (or pop-up window) where they hope you’ll “verify” this sensitive information. Depending on the information you may give, thieves can make purchases on your credit card, open bank accounts, take out loans, cash in on your government benefits—even commit crimes—all in your name.


These scams are commonly referred to as phishing. Learn more about phishing and how to avoid getting hooked.

What if you’ve already responded to an e-mail scam?
If you've replied to one of these scams by entering some personal information, read What to do if you've responded to a phishing scam. There you’ll find a series of steps you can take to help lessen the impact of having responded, and help restore your credit and good name.

How can you tell if an e-mail message from MSN is real or a fake?
MSN will NEVER send unsolicited e-mail requesting personal or financial information. Because we care about your privacy, MSN will only ask subscribers to our premium services to update their personal account information at https://billing.microsoft.com, or http://membercenter.msn.com.

* Read up on the warning signs of a phishing scam and examine another phishing scam up close.
* Hotmail users can trust the MSN butterfly. If you see a butterfly next to an e-mail message (as shown below), know that it is an official e-mail to Hotmail members from Microsoft Online Services. While a scam artist can add a butterfly to the e-mail message itself, no one except Microsoft Online Services can put a butterfly icon in this spot.
* See a bogus Microsoft bulletin and find out How to tell if a Microsoft security-related message is genuine.

Click >here< to read on.