What kind of scam is this?

March 19, 2014 5:10 PM

I received an email asking me to confirm a textie.me account that I did not create. It *appears* to be legitimate, and the confirmation link does look to actually direct to textie (I did not click on it). What kind of scam / ID theft issue do I need to be mitigating here, if any?
posted by ryanshepard to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

None. Mark it spam, delete it, and move on.
posted by kavasa at 5:13 PM on March 19, 2014

Do you have a common name or easily mistyped email address? It could just be someone trying to sign up to textie who put the wrong email address in.
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 5:13 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: The least-nefarious and most likely possibility is that someone got their email address wrong (which happens all the time) and tried to sign up with your email address, in which case not clicking the link will help you not sign up.

It's also possible that it's a phishing scam and it's not a legit link and they will ask you to enter a password or something. Again, the solution for this is not clicking the link.

Basically, whatever the cause, just delete and ignore, there's nothing else you need to do here.
posted by brainmouse at 5:14 PM on March 19, 2014

People are idiots and they mistype their own email addresses.
posted by w0mbat at 5:25 PM on March 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Do you take Ambien?
posted by Jacqueline at 5:43 PM on March 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Probably not a scam, just a typo on someone else's part. That said, if it's not for you just delete it. No further action is required.
posted by Scientist at 5:50 PM on March 19, 2014

I fairly regularly get confirmations of memberships that are clearly from someone who mistakenly believes my email address is hers. (Or, more likely, thinks mine is her backup address she uses for junk, since she seems to never notice she doesn't get the emails there that she expects.) It happens. This is exactly why you're getting the email; because it's the only reason for them to believe the address they have is connected to the person who signed up. This is how they find out somebody typed in the wrong address, so don't confirm it.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 6:35 PM on March 19, 2014

Best answer: I get genuine Netflix "password change request" emails every couple weeks. I log into my account with my own password to make sure it hasn't really changed, check for odd stuff in my history, and I delete the emails. It is utterly impossible that anyone else accidentally typed in my email address thinking it's their own, because I've got my own domain and a unique name.

My vote is that a spammer knows only your email address, but rather than sending you spam email he's messing with common websites in hopes that you either already have an account there and will absentmindedly click approve on a "password change request" email, or you will absentmindedly confirm their new account creation.

Spammers are not sophisticated, and they're only trying to hook really, really stupid people -- the kind that would confirm a new account creation that they clearly never created. Delete it, they haven't stolen your identity.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:46 PM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, my main email address is my first initial + last name, and tons of people with that first initial + last name think they have my email address. So I get this a lot.

Now, if your email address is [e-mail] , this is probably less likely.
posted by wildcrdj at 6:55 PM on March 19, 2014

Response by poster: Do you take Ambien?

I've had some related ID theft issues lately that have made me pay very close attention to emails like this.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:10 PM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]