Recently, a slew of emails have been sent out asking people to follow a link and fill out personal and/or financial information.

This kind of email is called “phishing” because the perpetrator is phishing for your personal and/or financial information. This email is currently targeting clients that have campaigns with Google AdWords, but whether you have an AdWords account or not any emails asking you for sensitive information should be suspect.

Google will never ask you through email to fill out credit card or any other personal information. If you have any questions about an email that you receive from Google, don’t click on the link in the email. Instead, log into your account the way you normally do. If there really is a problem with your billing or other information, you or your PPC specialist will see alerts within the account.

To the untrained user (or if your not paying attention), this scam could easily get the best of you. The redirect address incorporates a sub domain string that initially leads you to think you are going to google.adwords.com, but if you look closely or move your mouse over the link, you’ll see that the link is directing you to a different URL address.

Here are 4 different scam emails being sent out (although MANY different variations are circulating so be suspecous of all emails from Google Adwords ):

If you suspect that you have received an email scam please notify the company that your account is with as well as the Federal Trade Commission. However, if you recently recieved a similair email and filled out credit card information, call your credit card company immediately and make sure that you have not been victimized by this scam.

Google AdWords Resource: https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=93198

If you would like more information about “Phishing” or how to report a scam, the following link will take you to the government site dedicated to online fraud:

http://www.onguardonline.gov/phishing.html