There was a time when I thought checking the headers of emails that looked like spam would give me enough information and keep me safe from fraudsters. This has changed. I am receiving emails from actual domain names of companies like Amazon and Paypal. People are receiving calls from customer service caller IDs of well known companies. Either fraudsters are becoming too smart or the companies are becoming too fixated on increasing their profits that they have stopped concentrating on probable loopholes in their systems.

The screenshot attached shows that the email is coming from Amazon and the proposed link (from the text of fake order no 192-773-7646) in the body of the email will take you to some other website to complete its heinous fraud.

I tried to find if Dean Clark was a writer. I found a few University professors by this name. There have been a few more prominent Dean Clarks.

1. Dean Clark was the voice of Berlioz in the Cartoon Movie "AristoCats" from 1970.
2. Dean Clark is a former ice hockey defenceman and head coach of the Prince George Cougars. Clark is also the former head coach of the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League.
3. Dean Clark (born 31 March 1980) is a retired footballer. He was originally a professional who made a handful of appearances for Brentford and then went on to play for a variety of teams local to north and west London, including making over one hundred appearances for Northwood.
4. Dean Clark (born 6 January 1968) is a New Zealand rugby league coach and former footballer who represented his country between 1989 and 1992.

So even though the email is not intended to be sent to me by amazon.com, I believe Amazon.com owes me a duty of care to secure its IT assets so that people do not use their domain names to send fraudster emails.

Dear Customer,

Your order has been successfully canceled. For your reference, here's a summary of your order:

You just canceled order 192-773-7646 placed on May 23, 2017.

Status: CANCELED

_____________________________________________________________________

1 "Perspective"; 2008, Special Edition
By: Dean Clark

Sold by: Amazon.com LLC

_____________________________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting Amazon.com!

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Amazon.com
Earth's Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com
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I must say the spam sometimes is blissful, as one ends up doing some research to get to the bottom of it and learns so many new things. "Be careful" is the key word. There are no free lunches. Nothing happens on its own. If you didnt order anything it will not arrive out of the blue. If you did not buy a lottery ticket, you will not win millions. If you dont know any one in Nigeria, no one will contact you to share their millions.

The looks of this nicely formatted HTML based email makes it look real and authentic, but all the links and buttons are not pointing to AMAZON, but to some other websites where you will enter your Amazon password and they will know it. Then they will use your username and password to make purchases and have them sent to unknown addresses/ PO boxes or mailboxes. Or even use your credit card to buy instant downloads which are not traceable afterwards.

Message From Customer Service
Hello,

You have entered wrong password for many times. As our security precautions, we need more informations from you. Once you've confirmed you own this account, we’ll walk you through some steps to make your account more secure

Is that you?
Yes No, Secure My Account

Your action is required to help us to protect you Amazon account securely.
Thank you.
Amazon.com

Always check the links and buttons and where they are pointing to....