Receiving an email with the subject line “San Diego Site Leadership and Management Team sent you an Amazon Gift Card!” certainly catches your attention, especially when it lands in your work inbox, seemingly from “Amazon.com Gift Cards”. This is exactly what happened to me recently, and while a free amazon.com gift card sounds great, something felt off.
The email was simple, stating:
Please enjoy this $50.00 Amazon gift card to purchase an item of your choice to kick-off Q4 and in recognition of your hard work. We appreciate you! #SDThePlaceToBe
It even included a “Claim Code” that looked legitimate, something like “TIAT-UTAHBX-3V4T”. However, my first red flag was the lack of personalization – no mention of my employer’s name, just a generic thank you.
Alt: A generic image depicting a suspicious email on a laptop screen, highlighting the subject line and sender address related to an Amazon gift card offer.
My gut feeling urged caution, so I took a few steps before getting excited about a potential free amazon.com gift card. Firstly, I contacted my employer to verify if this was a genuine reward. They confirmed they hadn’t sent any such gift card. Secondly, I reached out to Amazon support directly to inquire if an email gift card had been issued to me. Amazon also confirmed no gift card was associated with my email address.
So far, this pointed towards a typical phishing attempt, something easily dismissed. But what made this particular email peculiar was what I found when examining the email headers and links. Unlike most phishing scams that contain malicious links designed to steal your information, this email was different. All the links within the email, including the social sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest at the bottom, directed to legitimate amazon.com URLs. I hadn’t clicked them, but upon inspection, they appeared genuine.
This raised a significant question: what was the purpose of this phishing email? If I had clicked on the links, they would have led me to the real Amazon website. The “Claim Code” was likely fake, and as Amazon support suggested, attempting to redeem it would simply fail. There were no apparent mechanisms to steal data or install malware.
Is this a new, more subtle form of phishing scam? Is there any potential benefit for the sender if someone clicks on a seemingly safe link within an email like this? While this particular amazon.com gift card offer turned out to be fake, understanding the nuances of such scams is crucial for staying safe online. Always be vigilant and double-check the legitimacy of unsolicited gift card emails, even if they seem to point to legitimate websites.
