Suspected fraud email

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Suspected fraud email

Thomas Bartlett 20

The following appeared in my email inbox at 7:07 AM (US Pacific time) on Monday 23 March, with a time stamp of 1:44:28 PM the same day. If the latter is genuine, the message was presumably sent not from Redmond WA (also US Pacific time zone) but from somewhere six or so hours to the east, in Europe or nearby. The message warns me of a "potentially payment" (not idiomatic English) in amount 382.98 USD for Windows Defender "By your credit card." I DID NOT order MS Defender. Overall, the email received shows multiple signs that raise alarms in my mind. What should I do?

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|| | -------- | This email was generated on 3/23/2026 1:44:28 PM.


View	We identified a potentially payment of (382.98 USD) for Windows Defender By your credit card. (Transaction Id:-i35bmb) Contact our 24.7 Microsoft Fraud Prevention Team at +1 (812) 538-5044 right away to resolve this issue.

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Answer 1

Rob Koch 25,865 Volunteer Moderator

Place the email message in your Junk Email folder by selecting either Report Phishing (which is what this obvious scam email actually is) or Report Junk if that's not listed in your email app.

You're correct it's an obvious scam email, primarily because it contains a phone number, which Microsoft never uses as a method of contact and hasn't for decade, so it's an immediate red flag. However, you've also identified at least half of the other obvious flags, such as no 'Last 4-digits' of your credit card number, though those are often easily acquired, the bad English, and others. It's difficult to believe such a short message contains so many obvious flags, including mention to contact them 'right away to resolve this issue' clearly an attempt to imply urgency, a hallmark of phishing and scams in general.

Placing the email in the appropriate Phishing or Junk reporting not only moves it to Junk, but also reports it to Microsoft instantly, which is always the best option for you to take to aid others who may receive this in the future.

Rob

Thomas Bartlett 20 Reputation points

2026-03-24T14:05:05.3033333+00:00

I have removed my original wording here, because it was posted incorrectly here, concerning a completely different issue. I'd delete this if I knew how.
Thomas Bartlett 20 Reputation points

2026-03-24T14:09:12.75+00:00

Sorry, but a moment ago, in early morning confusion, I submitted a comment to Rob Koch's excellent post but the content of my comment was concerned with an entirely different issue that troubled me yesterday with MS Word for Mac. As for this phishing email, I turned it to the Junk Mail folder and used eM Client's Blocking feature, for what it's worth, to block it. I hope that will bring it to Microsoft's attention.
Rob Koch 25,865 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2026-03-24T19:18:42.7433333+00:00

Thomas,

Moving the message to the Junk folder was the correct idea, while blocking nowadays is nearly useless, since the Spammers and Scammers know all of the tricks to bypass that relatively ancient technology, so you'll typically end up with huge lists of blocking attempts, most of which will only work for the single original Spam email for which they were created.

I stopped trying to block roughly 2 decades ago for this reason and instead immediately submit anything that Microsoft's email client doesn't recognize as Spam/Scam/Junk to either Phishing or Junk email as I mentioned, since that reporting allows Microsoft's anti-Spam group to adjust their filtering rules for any changes the Spammers have made to try and circumvent these.

Take my word for it, I spent a couple decades in IT Administration including managing email servers, then another 15 years in the professional security services realm, including our own Phishing product designed to test and train employees of major companies how to recognize such false messages.

Rob

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