The SERPzone

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Recently I got an email with an apparent letter from the Google AdWords team saying that I need to update my billing information that read as follows:

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does
not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

—————————————–

Dear AdWords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information.
To activate your account and start running your ads, enter your billing information.

In order to activate your account and start running your ads, enter your billing information.
Pease sign into your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login, and update
your billing information.

Once your account is reactivated and your billing information has been processed,
any your ads and campaigns can begin running immediately on Google.
———————-

The Google-AdWords Team

The link was even the normal Google login link, but when I hovered over the link, I saw the address was sending me to http://adwords.google.efr9ifd.cn/select/Login.

Hmm…last time i logged in I don’t recall seeing numbers in my URL with a .cn extension. Besides the URL data, the page looked very similar, with the only difference being they built it off the account sign-up page instead of the current advertiser login page (slightly different wording).

This is a classic phishing scam, but instead of saying you need to login and change your bank password or your MySpace password, they’re asking for adWords passwords and billing info. If this happens to you, don’t login, but DO report it to Google.

From the time I reported this to Google until the time I’m writing this post (less than 24 hours) the site was already taken down, but I’m willing to be new addresses will be created with the same page. Please don’t give them any CC information or login information. Even with just your login they could put spammy ads up for drugs, casinos, porn, or other regulated industries that could get your account closed or punished. And that’s not including any of the charges incurred by you for any clicks those spammy ads get!

So… do everyone a favor and stay away from these scams and report any emails to Google. They have a lot more resources to go after these guys than us advertisers. After all, the best way to stop a scammer is to make sure he can’t profit from his scams.

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Tags: adwords, google //