PSA: Warehouse Sale - SCAM

[Pathfinder]

Yeah, I almost got scammed right after Christmas, Sig Sauer closeout sale. EVERYTHING looked kosher, the prices were too good to be true, and about 4-5 clicks in, the URL changed to something really weird - not even close to anything Sig or purchasing-related, so I bailed.

Interestingly, for about 2 weeks, I got emails reminding me of the bargains, and urging me to finish the order. Those I deleted quickly.

[Big Frank]

I got a phishing email today that I knew was a scam but I wanted to see what they were up to. It said Important Update: Your Social Security Statement, but came from someone at alaskawonders.com. The link they wanted me to click on was something created by an URL shortener like Bitly, but even shorter. It was from the world's shortest URL shortener, T.LY. So I copied the shortened URL and found out they make an URL Expander Tool so you can see what it really links to. If you go there you can enter the short link I was sent, https: //t.ly/sg0tp, and see what it really is. It redirects to alovelycalling dot com with a .php script. I've seen .php links before but still don't understand what they are. Then it redirects again to socialbenefits-updater dot com/socialsecurity/. It then yields an HTTP 403 status code, meaning access to the requested resource is forbidden. The server understood the request, but will not fulfill it, if it was correct.

There's an example on the site, https: //t.ly/OYXL, that when you expand it is https: //chromewebstore.google dot com/detail/url-shortener/oodfdmglhbbkkcngodjjagblikmoegpa. If you're ever curious about what any of the shortened URLs really are, this URL expander works better than several others I tried today. They have a bunch of other tools, but I haven't looked to see what they are yet. It seems to be a legit company, but some people using the URL shorteners are, to put it politely, bad operators. I could think of several other choice words to call them but 'm keeping it civilized.

https://t.ly/tools/link-expander