Scam?

[Sqad]

Just had email from Google saying........ "Your account is listed as the recovery email for ..."

"The recovery phone for your account was changed, if you didn't change it you should check what happened."

Scam eh?

[wolf63]

Probably, but not necessarily, a scam ...

[Sqad]

LOL....yer but no but?

[AuntLydia]

No sqad take it seriously. The first thing hackers do is change the email and phone number associated with the account. Obviously don't call or click any links in the email. Go onto your Google account and check your settings. If you can't get on use someone else's google account to report possible fraud. A google account hack can seem quite innocuous but from that they can hack into other accounts so best be aware.

[Sqad]

Thanks Lydia........will do.

[Neveracrossword]

Sqad, my friend, who's totally useless with technology, gave MY address when she set up her Gmail account. She said it took all her skills to get one address, let alone two. I get emails like yours when she logs into her gmail from a new phone, say, or has to change her password.

[Sqad]

OK..thanks all.

[AuntLydia]

I speak from experience. I had a similar email , when I tried to log in to my account the password had been changed and they had hacked into my Amazon account and put a block on any emails incoming from amazon. I only found out as a dodgy transaction showed up on my bank account and I actually phoned amazon. My account was hacked and they had started to order goods, they tried to hack my Ebay account as well it was a nightmare. No money was lost but every card I had had to be stopped and reissued.

[Guilbert53]

This is why you should have DIFFERENT logon / password combination for your email addresses and for your web sites.

Lets suppose your email address and password is [email protected] with a password of football.

Lets also suppose your logon details for Amazon is also [email protected] with a password of football.

Once they find out your email address and password they can also get in to your Amazon account (and any other account that uses the same email address and password).

ALWAYS use a different password for logging on to your email systems than you do for logging on to Amazon or eBay.

[Ellipsis]

A genuine email would be ...

From: [email protected]

More details ... Assuming you actually use Gmail, then when viewing the email in question, at the top right of the email you will see three vertical dots (a vertical ellipsis!) which, when you put the cursor over it, will say "More". Click the three dots and, on the menu that appears, click "Show Original". A new tab will open in your browser. In that tab you will see the complete text-only version of the email that was sent to you. Near the very top you will see a table, and probably the third row of the table will read "From:". Alongside that it should say:

Google

If it doesn't say then then the chances are that somebody is trying to pretend to be Google in order to try to get you to disclose your logins somehow.

If you are feeling unsure, change your password. For more details, see here:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/46526?hl=en

[Ellipsis]

Sorry, where above I wrote "Alongside that it should say:

Google "

there was also an email address but it's been stripped out because it was in between less than and greater than signs. So it should say:

"Google"
then a less than sign
then "[email protected]"
then a greater than sign

To reiterate, if you are feeling unsure, change your password. For more details, see here:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/46526?hl=en