Here’s a scary subject line I just saw in my inbox today:
“Your Aweber Account Has Been Flagged”
It’s every email marketer’s nightmare!
Over the past few years, I’ve heard of quite a few Internet marketers having their Aweber autoresponder accounts suspended for various reasons. This is the last thing I wanted to happen to me.
It’s a big hassle moving autoresponders, especially if you have multiple lists and optin forms all over the place!
I opened the email expecting the worst, and this is what I saw…
The message was this…
Here at Aweber we take our customers security seriously.
According to our daily reports we believe that someone with a different IP was trying to access your account without a valid permission.
our security system has detected an unusual activities on your account earlier,
for your own security we flagged this case to be high risk.
In order to solve this problem and establish a new secure environment on your account,
please follow the instructions in our secure hosted web by clicking the link below
http://www.awebercomplaints.com/users/flsa_reset_aff_password.htm?ra9tocp3n2vg3xq2r7s8haapqhhh&email=johnlagoudakis@gmail.com&action=resetpassword
we usually give a maximum of 7 days to our customers to respond to our security warnings
if no action will be taken from your side in the next 7 days your account will be temporary deactivated for future.
if you believe you are receiving this message by mistake please contact our account security department
for more information regarding this case
AWeber Communications, Inc
Account Security Department
Mike T
MikeT@Aweber.com
Fortunately, I’ve been around a while and could tell this was a fake email. There was a few things that rang the alarm bells:
- Aweber (or any other company) won’t respond to a suspected security risk by sending you an email with a “reset your password here” link. This is an obvious phishing scam. A phishing scam is one that tries to capture your login details.
- Gramatical errors. Many of the sentences don’t begin with a capital letter.
- Non-official domain. The link in the email points to an unofficial Aweber domain (awebercomplaints.com).
In short, this message is an Aweber scam. It is designed to get your Aweber login details so that the scammer can access your autoresponder account and steal your subscriber lists.
Whatever you do, don’t follow the instructions in this email!
Want to be sure that your Aweber account is not at risk? Contact Aweber support directly and ask them to verify the status of your account 🙂
I knew it was fake cause I don’t even have an aweber account. I Googled “aweber account has been flagged” and found your post amongst the top. Thanks for the update!
Thanks Carmelita. I did a bit more research just to confirm, and yes, it’s a 100% scam!
I’ve gotten this one too, also the other more usual suspects PayPal, eBay, a bunch of different banks (some aren’t even in my country).
Yes… and they play on your fear, e.g. fear of losing money.
I’ve gotten plenty of other scam emails, mostly pay pal, but this is the first I’ve heard of a Aweber one! Guess shouldn’t be surprised.
Though I feel left out now, because I haven’t gotten one yet. LOL
But that you John for posting this. That one looks pretty legit too, bet it’s stung some folks.
Hi Ron, the worst part is the shock factor, that is, when you first see the subject line and you worry about losing your livelihood!
I have been burned in the past, by Google, so I know what it feels like when you get a legitimate email that tells you your account has been shut down. It’s heartbreaking and really depressing.
Scammers like this really make me mad!