Liberty Reserve phishing email scam

It’s been a long time since we wrote about examples of phishing emails we have been receiving. We are sharing another one we received yesterday. Be warned! Don’t visit the fake site so you won’t be a victim.

The Liberty Reserve Phishing Email

From: no_reply@libertyreserve.com <no_reply@libertyreserve.com>
Date: Sun, May 24, 2009 at 6:27 PM
Subject: You have received a transfer in your Liberty Reserve account

Dear Liberty Reserve member,

You have been sent a transfer of 1392 USD from  Liberty Reserve account U3983977. However, in accordance to our newly modified Security Policy, valid from today, 24th May 2009, you are required to confirm your identity before you can receive transfer spends of a sum over 1000 USD. This is done to further strenghten the safety of our members and minimize the possibility of a fraudulent transaction.

Please click on the link below to be taken to the page where you will confirm your ownership of your Liberty Reserve account and receive the transfer spend. Fill out all the fields and press the “Confirm” button. Your submitted data will be sent to our Support team and processed MANUALLY. A few hours later you will be sent an email confirmation and the balance of your Liberty Reserve account will be reflected with the receipt of the 1392 USD.

The above process is a one-time verification of your ownership of your Liberty Reserve account and you will not be required to authenticate yourself once you have successfully completed the process.

Note: Bear in mind that, due to security reasons imposed by our new Policy, the spend will not be credited to your account until you confirm your identity.

CONFIRM YOUR ACCOUNT WITH LIBERTY RESERVE HERE:

https://www.libertyreserve.com/en/customer/confirm/verify.aspx

For information and support please e-mail us at support@libertyreserve.com

Thank you.

At first glance, the email appears legitimate because it supposedly came from the libertyreserve.com domain. But what convinced us that this is just a spoof or fake email are the following:

• 1. The email address this email was sent to was not the email address attached to my Liberty Reserve account;
• 2. I don’t expect anyone to send me $1,392 for no apparent reason;
• 3. The link in the email goes to a different site (http://84.252.25.106/www.libertyreserve.com/en/customer/confirm/funds_verify.php) — NOT an official Liberty Reserve site.

Make sure you don’t fall for these phishing scams. Don’t just click on whatever link you see on the email. Conduct research whether the email you got is a valid email from the service provider.

Here are some more articles that can help you understand and protect yourself against phishing schemes:

• What is Phishing? How to check if an email is a phishing email?
• Phishing email: Your eBay account has been suspended
• Other examples of fake or spoof emails