I received this email appearing to come from an employee at my landlord’s office today (6/24). My landlord’s office is not open on Saturdays. I was immediately suspicious of it.
The email had about 30 recipients on it including me. The list of recipients did not include my fiancé, who is on the lease with me.
A email header analysis via google’s admin tools showed that the email did come from the email in the sender info. There is a mailto: link in the body that, when moused over, shows mailto:[email address of the employee].
I looked on the landlord’s website and this person’s name is listed as an employee and the photo on the website matches the photo in the email signature. The email matches the email listed on the website.
The language in the email seems off to me. All the other emails I have received from other employees at the landlord’s office have been very straightforward, this email is very flowery and apologetic in its request.
Overall, it has signs of being a scammy email and signs of being genuine, but I am leading towards scam. I sent a screenshot of the email to a different employee at the landlord’s office asking if it was legitimate. They are closed on weekends so I probably won’t see a response until Monday.
I think the employee’s account credentials were phished and the account is being used by a scammer under her name. Am I right to be suspicious of this email?
Might be real, but the best course of action here is to contact your landlord’s office and verify it before making any assumptions. You’re on the right track.
This looks very fake.
I definitely thought so! But I received a response from my trusted contact at the office and it was legitimate.
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Best course of action like others have said, contact the office directly. I’m not sure that it is a scam but if you have any suspicion then treat it as a scam. It’s a bad habit on the sender’s part to send it off where other people’s emails can be grabbed.
One explanation, and it happened where I’ve worked, someone writes an email using the one PC that all supervisor level workers must use. Due to login credentials already in place, everything goes out from the wrong email and with the wrong signature by accident. Or they’re training someone and the let them use their credentials.
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Signs of scam:
- Being sent on the weekend when the office was closed
- Not sent to people that it should be sent
- Language is off
User’s email account or the business email server may be hacked, so sending an email from a legitimate account doesn’t guarantee legitimacy. I would lean toward being suspicious that the person was trying to get basic personal info (address is probably not a big deal) and if your responded, a more financial-related/personal information from you.
So, following up, was this a phishing email?
It turned out to be legitimate
Thx for the update.
