Fake emails from Microsoft ?

Question

I just got an email today on June 14, 2024 which knows what type of credit card I have, knows the last 4 digits of my card, knows my true monthly charge, and knows which msn.com (mail) service I usually pay for. I don’t think it is a real email because it says that today is July 9th which is not true. Here is the message where I blocked out the card name and the 4 digits of the card :

“We attempted to renew your MSN Dial-Up Internet Access subscription on July 9, 2024, but the charge of USD 5.95 to Xxxxccc Network **xxxx was unsuccessful.

To avoid cancelation, please update your payment information or choose another method of payment for your subscription.”

This is pretty scary. I had gotten an email earlier that this month’s June’s payment was unsuccessful for 5.95. Instead of clicking any links within the email I signed unto my MS account and was able there to successfully pay it using the usual credit card which Microsoft has on file for me. So, don’t know whether Microsoft has problems or my credit card company had problems earlier. Now I think that based on the latest email above that a hacker is involved or Microsoft has major problems with their system.

Please help. Thanks.

Answer 1

The address that it comes from looks legitimate. I looked at it by “pretending” to both reply and also seeing what the address looks like when forwarding it :

“From: Microsoft <microsoft-noreply@microsoft.com>
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2024 3:52 PM
To: f…@msn.com <f,…@msn.com>
Subject: Your MSN Dial-Up Internet Access subscription renewal was unsuccessful. “

I forgot to mention earlier that the original email had a blue “Renew your subscription” button.

Don’t know how to look at more of the “header” to see whether the email had travelled through other networks before arriving in my iOS Outlook inbox.

Answer 2

You would need to view the mail header to see who the real sender was