Just a heads up that another round of phishing is going around targeting Adwords customers.  If you get the following email, DELETE it- it contains links to NON-Google sites that are set up to extract your credit card information from you.  They are indiscriminately mailing domain contacts with standard email addresseses such as info@.

From: Google-AdWords [mailto:adwords-noreply@google.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:37 AM
To: Information
Subject: Account Reactivation.
 
——————————————————————-

Dear Advertiser,

Our attempt to charge your credit card for your
outstanding Google AdWords account balance was declined.
Your account is still open. However, your ads have been suspended. Once
we are able to charge your card and receive payment for your account
balance, we will re-activate your ads.

Please update your billing information, even if you plan to use the
same credit card. This will trigger our billing system to try charging
your card again. You do not need to contact us to reactivate your
account.

To update your primary payment information, please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select.
2. Enter your primary payment information.
3. Click ‘Update’ when you have finished.

———————————————————————–
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does
not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you
have any questions, please visit the Google AdWords Help Centre
———————————————————————-

Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. We look forward to
providing you with the most effective advertising available.

 

This week I started noticing a large-scale phishing attack against enom user accounts. 

Emails are being randomly sent to common (e.g. sales@, info@, admin@ etc), dictionary and to randomly-gener ated addresses, and so will be received by a lot of people without ENOM accounts, including YNot Web customers. The mails are very well-written and look very legitimate.  The first one I received left me scratching my head as I thought “but I have NO enom accounts.”  I’d mostly expect some confusion and some slight panic as the messages are warning of downtimes as well as “complaints” against you for inaccurate whois information.

The emails seen so far use subjects like the below (click for full letters that we have gathered):

• maintenance at enom.com - warning!
• attention: Inaccurate whois information.
• Inaccurate whois information.
• Warning: Inaccurate whois information.
• Your domain must be deleted today

The “from” addresses are randomly selected and may include:

• support@enom.com
• info@enom.com
• info2@enom.com
• customercare@enom.com
• tech@enom.com

The emails sent vary from merely mentioning maintenance and including an account login link, to enticing clicks by saying that your domain has been suspended unless you login and verify data. Links will take you to a non-enom site such as enom.comsys52.net which will store a person’s logon details for later exploitation.

If you receive such a message, DELETE it.  If you happen to be an ENOM user and have clicked on a link in one of these messages and entered account details(even if you weren’t sure if you were an ENOM user and you entered ANY account information) , you have unwittingly compromised your accounts. Immediately change your login information to your ENOM account and contact ENOM to inform them that you have been the victim of a phishing attack.

Well, finally I have been able to notify all the winners of our 5th anniversary Customer Appreciation Raffle.  And the winners are:

• Dave Hollars, Kitchen Mart, Neat Receipts 3.0 Receipt Scanner valued at $180
  Dave filled out one entry form, referred 3 prospects and two new clients since we launched the new Kitchen Mart website and started doing SEO/Marketing services for them last fall.
• Trish Lindvall, Cordova Recreation and Park District, $100 SpaFinder spa Certificate
  Trish submitted 1 entry form and referred one new client since our last raffle.
• Wendy York, York Law Corporation, $100 Morton’s Steakhouse Gift Certificate
  York Law Corp filled out one entry form, referred one prospect and one new client since our last raffle, have had five websites designed, and have been SEO/Marketing clients since 2005.
• Dale Burkam, Web Product Sales: 8mb iPod Touch valued at $199
  Dale submitted 1 entry form, referred two prospects and one new client since last year.
• Laura Abernathy, Mission Accomplished Academy, YNot Web’s Biz Booster package, valued at $460, which includes SEO services and a $100 Google Adwords budget
  Laura submitted 1 entry form and one verbal testimonial
• Debbie Murphy, Murphy Farm & Lawn, $100 Google Adwords budget and SEM services to create an Adwords campaign
  Debbie submitted 1 entry form and one written testimonial since we launched her new website this past spring.
• Trent Long, GoGift, A foursome at North Ridge Country Club valued at over $400
  Trent submitted 1 entry form, referred one prospect, one new client, and has been an SEO/Marketing client since 2006.

Also, we decided to do one additional surpise prize for the best suggestion for a new service given via our survey form.  After reviewing all the surveys submitted, we chose Mary Griffin of Griffin & Associates for the best idea.  Mary suggested that YNot Web offer a class on how to improve and update your website.  This sounds like a good idea to give our clients a chance to have a refresher course on using their web editor, suggestions on content they should consider adding to improve their site and ways to make the most of the website they have.  I will try to figure out how to offer something like this in the future.

Mary’s prize for this suggestion is a $100 Spa Finders gift certificate, good at numerous spas in the Sacramento area and beyond (nationwide).

Congratulations to all our winners and a big thanks to all our YNot Web clients, past and present.   Look for our Customer Appreciation Raffle again next year and if you’re not yet one of our clients, Y-Not?

We have eight more winners for our client appeciation drawing– however– I won’t be able to get notifications out until Monday!  Be patient- you may have already won!

The deadline for our “grand finale” drawing for our 5th Annual Customer Appreciation Raffle is tomorrow at 6pm PDT.  Did you enter as many times as you’re allowed?  If you’re a past client and haven’t received your entry instruction, check your email or junk mail filters for past notifications or you can request a resend. 

Last week’s winners selected from our prize vault the following prizes:

• Ray La Point, Delight Cleaning, selected an 8mb iPod Touch valued at $199.
  Ray submitted 1 entry form and one testimonial.
• Andrea Raymond, Appletree Advertising, selected Season Tickets to the Sacramento Theater Company’s 2008-2009 season valued at $300.
  Andrea submitted 1 entry form and referred one new client since our last raffle.

With these prizes gone, the following items are still up for grabs:

• $100 SpaFinder spa Certificates
• $100 Restaurant-of-your-choice Gift Certificate
• A foursome at North Ridge Country Club valued at over $400
• Neat Receipts 3.0 Receipt Scanner valued at $180
• 8mb iPod Touch valued at $199
• YNot Web’s Biz Booster package valued at $300
• $100 Google Adwords budget
• Trial subscription to YNot Web’s Blogmentation™ service valued at over $400

Don’t miss your chance this year! Get your entries in!