Technology

01/29/2020 By Jason Bean 1 Comment

Can You See the Red Flags in This PayPal Account Phishing Attempt

PayPal Phishing Email Screenshot — Click Image to Enlarge

It still surprises me the number of people that get taken by these types of spam emails, normally leading to malware installs, identity theft or other annoyances of life in the digital age. For me I hardly ever click on links in an email if I'm not expecting the email from someone already in advance. Even then I take a few quick seconds to scan the email and look for anything that seems fishy to me. Or should that be "phishy"?

Can you spot all the issues with this email I recently received:

Misspelled the name of the company in the sender's name "Paypl service"
Spammy looking email address! - this isn't always a reliable tell-tell sign to watch out, but more often than not it should give you a heads up. In this case the account name (prior to the @ symbol) seems odd, and in this case the server the email is coming from is also pretty sketchy looking
Not always a red-flag (sadly) but there's numerous instances of letters being capitalized in the body of the message that shouldn't be if following standard grammatical rules
Although not an alert all by itself, anything I see a link that's formatted as a button, I know there's opportunity for the things to be hidden, in this case we look at where the link is going to go by hovering over the link with our mouse in the browser and our browser telling us where in the bottom-left-hand corner
Look at that link! //cat.jp.as.criteo.com/ now I'm going to stop right there because it's interesting to note that "Criteo" is a legitimate advertising platform, so these spammers appear to be either absolutely tracking their efforts of success or potentially spoofing this further to obscure their ploy. Taking a further look at the remaining part of the URL you'll see another website address being include after the "?r=" query string. That leads me to believe that link is being redirected even further to help cover their tracks

Here's another quick Public Service Announcement for you, don't just go clicking on links in emails even when they look like they're coming from legitimate sources.

In this case, if you did indeed have a PayPal account and you were worried about it. Go to their website directly by opening your browser and typing in the URL of the company directly and visiting the site that way. Login to your account and see if there are any warnings or alerts posted there. If the company has a chat feature for support, send them a chat and have them verify if there are or are not any issues with your account that need to be addressed.

09/05/2019 By Jason Bean Leave a Comment

Great Marketing Strategy Nag Screen From Avast

When's the last time you were impressed and surprised by a company's marketing strategy towards you?

I'll admit it. If there's a free piece of software that works for me I will use it. And use it, and use it, and then some! I used Microsoft Defender and Windows Security Essentials for forever as my anti-virus and anti-malware services. And yes, they always worked well for me. I've never had a reason to not continue using them as I had been for years.

Well, with Windows 10 at some point I got the Avast free antivirus software installed and as before I've continued to use it because it seems to work fine for me, although I do miss my previous software installs.

Avast software includes them regularly nagging me about my PC running slow and they can improve it and blah-blah-blah. I usually click through the upgrade notifications and warnings and go along my merry way. I'm an above average computer user and can just take care of most of those things myself. It's amazing what regular maintenance activities and being aware of what's getting installed on my machines to begin with can make a difference.

Getting Surprised and Impressed by Avast

This evening though, as I was clicking through the screens to say "No Thanks" the screen featured below popped up.

This is a great piece of marketing strategy work in my opinion. They've taken the usual motivations for "No" and clearly give you reasons to trust them and give them a try while reinforcing the low-risk and zero price commitment barriers.

As you've probably experienced, you'll sign-up for a trial of something and before you know it the trial is over and you just got your account cha-chinged for a charge you really weren't prepared to confirm in the budget that month.

Key Marketing Strategy Points

Here are the key points I believe in this marketing strategy messaging above:

I'm reminded of the issues my PC was experiencing that this software says it will fix. In my case that's 445 performance issues (a personalized total for me as a customer)
Reminder that I can take advantage of the 60-day trial completely FREE
If I like it, on 11/04/2019 I will be charged the 1 year subscription rate (I frequently put reminders in my calendar now a couple of days ahead of these kinds of dates to remind me to take care and cancel it if I don't want it)
Additionally, they're letting me know (because of my behavior in the previous point) they're going to alert me a week before the deadline to cancel so I don't get surprised and irritated at them for automatically renewing my subscription.
Additional reminders via text
Nice comforting green color

I Might Actually Upgrade to the Premium Version

I'm actually pretty close to giving it a try and just seeing how I like it, and most importantly, did it clean-up those 445 performance issues and actually speed up my computer for me? One thing they left off that I think would have been beneficial, and it probably would be included in that email 7 days before! They've got an option to save more if you subscribe for 3 years at a time. It works out to $1.69/mnth billed at just over $60 for the 3 years.

What's not said in this advertisement is that this probably saves Avast a ton of headaches as well. Their customer service reps are probably tired of fielding calls, emails and online social media complaints about getting auto-billed and renewed for services.

When's the last time you put your customer's shoes on and thought about their experience with you and your company? Ask yourself how you'd like to be treated if the roles were reversed?

What would your sales and marketing processes look like then?

07/13/2018 By Jason Bean 1 Comment

How to Build the Reputation of Your Internet Business

Reputation has long been considered an essential ingredient for business success, and it’s something that almost every profitable business has had to consider at some point. If you run an internet business, then it’s even more important. The internet has thrown up all sorts of opportunities for community engagement – and this means that if your business is entirely online, then you’re in exactly the sort of place where people are likely to be reviewing you day in and day out. Reputation, then, is key. Here are some ways that reputable online businesses are choosing to preserve their good reputations on the internet.

Online Review Sites

Taking a look down Yelp, Trustpilot or a similar site reveals thousands of businesses all getting reviewed by customers – and thousands more customers there posting them. At first glance, customer experience reviews may seem like something that’s reserved for offline businesses only – but that’s not the case. With so many online businesses now offering platform-based services that are deeply linked to real-world businesses (such as Uber, which is simply a platform business linking customers to drivers through the internet), the lines between offline and online are blurred – and it could well be the internet business that gets the bad rep when things go wrong. Go to Axxel.biz and check this marketing company to see which service is the best one for your business. You don't need to wait for your customers to find your website online, you can call a SEO expert and find together a way to attract more clients.

Maintaining a presence on review sites is therefore crucial. You could, for example, consider designating a staff member to monitor these sites, and responding to posts on there as and when they arrive. If you run the sort of internet business that can cripple your customers if problems arise, such as website server provision, then ideally you need to invest heavily in this sort of reputation damage control – and have someone on hand to monitor sites such as Stack Exchange, Reddit and Twitter in case instant responses are needed.

Content Marketing

If you’re an online business rather than an in-person one, then it’s likely that you won’t have the normal marketing channels – such as local newspapers or a storefront on Main Street in town – open to you. Instead, you might need to rely on search engines like Google – a process known as search engine optimization (SEO). Building enough of a reputation to appear highly in search results can be achieved, though, and one way to do it is through guest blogging services. By guest publishing content that links back to your internet business’s homepage on influential blogs and websites, these content marketing intermediaries can really transform how Google ranks your reputation.

Building reputation if you’re an online business is something that’s easier said than done. Everyone is a commenter and a reviewer in the internet age – and when your business is an integral part of that online world, it can quickly become risky. However, with options such as staff investment, content marketing, SEO and more at your disposal, there are plenty of ways that you can enhance your online reputation and ensure that your business continues to benefit from the internet – rather than end up harmed by it.

Photo by Rita Morais on Unsplash