Blizzard Battle.Net E-Mail Scam?

[Jamash]

I've just received a suspicious e-mail apparently from 'noreply@blizzard.com' about changes to my Battle.Net account...

Spoiler: The E-mail

Hello,

This is an automated notification regarding your Battle.net account. Some or all of your contact information was recently modified through the Account Management website.

*** If you made recent account changes, please disregard this automatic notification.


*** If you did NOT make any changes to your account, we recommend you log in to Account Management* review your account settings.

*(hyperlink to 'http://www.battle.net-wowadmin-notice-safety.com/login/en/login.asp?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fus.battle.net%2Faccount%2Fmanagement%2Fbeta-profile.xml&app=bam')

If you cannot sign into Account Management using the link above, or if unauthorized changes continue to happen, please contact Blizzard Billing & Account Services for further assistance.

Billing & Account Services can be reached at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499 Mon-Fri, 8AM-8PM Pacific Time) or at billing@blizzard.com. (hyperlink to 'billing@blizzard.com')

Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives will typically lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

The Battle.net Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment
www.blizzard.com/support (hyperlink to 'http://www.blizzard.com/support')
Online Privacy Policy

The above e-mail is copied and pasted exactly, grammatical mistakes and all, except that I've highlighted the hyperlinks and have added the addresses they link to in bold.

The reason that this e-mail is suspicious is that I do not own any Blizzard games or have a Battle.Net account!

Is this a scam e-mail? Are those links to some fake Blizzard attack site? Has someone used my e-mail address to sign up for a Battle.Net account, if so, for what possible purpose?

Can anyone with a Battle.Net account tell me whether the information in this e-mail is genuine, whether this is the type of e-mail Blizzard would send and whether those links are Kosher.

Living in the UK I can't call those support numbers to ask Blizzard, but are the links in that e-mail actually Blizzard and should I contact them?

Has anyone had this kind of scam e-mail before? It seems similar to a phishing e-mail intended to get someone to give away their Steam account information, but since I don't have a Battle.Net account, why have I received it? What are the implications of someone using my e-mail address for a Battle.Net account?

 

[wastaz]

It's a scam, check the hyperlink that they want you to go to. "www.battle.net-wowadmin-notice-safety.com" is not a blizzards server. If you use a whois service to look that address up you find that it's registered to

Domain Name: NET-WOWADMIN-NOTICE-SAFETY.COM
Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.
Whois Server: grs.hichina.com
Referral URL: http://www.net.cn
Name Server: DNS23.HICHINA.COM
Name Server: DNS24.HICHINA.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 07-oct-2010
Creation Date: 07-oct-2010
Expiration Date: 07-oct-2011

Somewhere in China. It's a scam. 100%.

Also, you have recieved it because your email address is on the web somewhere. Most likely related to games or gaming. These scammers bulk collect email addresses and just send out thousands of these mails at once to all addresses they find. A huge amount of people actually has these accounts so it works, and those that doesn't have them...well, they don't really care about them because they're spammers.

And it works. A lot of people fall for these things.

Something that might also be interesting is checking the email headers for these kind of mails. Most email clients don't show them by default, but for instance in thunderbird you can use ctrl+U to view the "emails source", which will show you a lot of the email headers. If any of these headers refers to it coming from some strange gmail/hotmail address (which many of them do) or something else looks fishy...well...you know it's a scam.

Also, by default never trust these kinds of emails.

 

[TheDist]

It is a fake, ive also had the exact same email. You can either delete it and ignore it or report it to blizzard.

 

[Hisshiss]

Yeah its a scam, they spread those Emails to everyone these days XD..I get like 9 a week, though I do actually have a battle.net account, just ignore it, or save it to a folder if your nervous, but Its not anything to worry about.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

100% Spam. I have received many in the past few months. It looks authentic at first glance but then so do so many other things. On the actual website You can't click anything but the Sign in button and the text fields. Just report for Phishing and add to spam filter.

Calumon: Can I have some Spam? I like Spam!

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Sounds pretty shady if you ask me. You might want to get in touch with Blizzard themselves about the whole affair and get them to sort it all out. The address sounds genuine but because you lack a blizzard account it sounds like it's a scam.

Yeah, get in touch with Blizzard about it.

EDIT: I tried accessing the site but the Google Chrome phishing filter blocked it. Yeah, you were getting scammed. Report them to whoever needs to be told and let them deal with it.

 

[Dana22]

Ignore it, its scam.

 

[electric discordian]

Yeah its a scam do not reply to it you will also be getting one from NCSoft telling you your Lineage and Aeon accounts have been compromised.

If they have your email address they can use it to set up a Wow account, which can be used for gold farming and get you a perma ban from Wow which if you value your social life won't be a problem!

I had my Wow account hacked using this email, which I know makes me a sucker but it meant the hacker paid for a 3 month sub for me! Which was nice!

 

[Gottsmik]

Had it several times now, ignored them every time.

 

[Kebabco]

That's so cool. And it looks so real, wow they really took time to write a wellwritten text and to copy the entire faceplate of the site. GJ!

 

[Kragg]

i set a filter on my email inbox to filter out actual mail from the actual blizzard adresses, you can find it on their website, with a quick googlesearch its in their FAQ

 

[The Youth Counselor]

I get this stuff all the time, but through Steam. I've reported every scammer to VALVe and Google's phishing site, but though the sites are disappeared few of the Steam accounts have done so.

 

[D Moness]

I got those e-mails as well starting from changes made to the account to account being locked due to illegal activities. For me it is a wow battle net account.

Funny thing is I do not have a wow/battle net account since i dislike WoW.

 

[Jark212]

I got a few of those, I knew it was a scam right away because I don't have a battlenet account...

 

[Jamash]

Thanks everyone.

So it's just a phish in the dark banking on the chance that I might have a battle.net account and fall for it?

It's a bit daunting to think that someone may be using my e-mail address to play WOW... it's like something out of a nightmare, waking up to find out you've got a Level 30 WOW character and raid commitments.

I think I'll contact the genuine Blizzard to tell them that if anyone has signed up using my e-mail address then it's not me, just to scuttle their fiendish Chinese plan.

It's funny, when I used to play Command and Conquer: Generals I always did wonder what the Chinese hackers up to when you built that hacking building... now I know, they were playing WOW inside Command and Conquer.

 

[D Moness]

It's a bit daunting to think that someone may be using my e-mail address to play WOW... it's like something out of a nightmare, waking up to find out you've got a Level 30 WOW character and raid commitments.

Some twat used my e-mail to set up a facebook account. so i locked that asap as possible

 

[phlip]

I got this email too, today... to the email I used to sign up for the Escapist. One of the advantages of owning your own domain - it's trivial to set up separate email accounts for every single thing you sign up for, so if you start getting spam you know where the leak is.

So either my email address is visible in my Escapist profile somewhere (which it doesn't seem to be, but if it is, how do you turn that off?) or the Escapist has sold my account information to spammers. Which would be sad, but seems unlikely.

Though, either way, it would explain why so many people here got the same email... they probably sent it to a whole heap of people specifically from here. I guess it makes sense, a gaming website's users would have a higher percentage of people with bnet accounts...

 

[ilspooner]

I had that exact email, and I don't have an account either. AKA, spam.

 

[scrambledeggs]

I had about 300 hundred of these a week for a looong time, until hotmail added that option to easily block people..

Now I get none.

And I have no battlenet account either .
Stupid phishers.

 

[Evilsanta]

It's a fake. I got a shitoad these in my inbox and i dont even have a WoW or battlenet account.