The Better Business Bureau of Central & Eastern Kentucky is warning businesses and consumers about an email that appears to be from a bbb.org email address about a recently filed complaint.
The email contains a dangerous attachment regarding a complaint and appears to direct recipients to the BBB website. This is a scam – the BBB does not send complaints as attachments via email.
The emails appear to come from a fake employee or the Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Virginia claiming that the recipient needs to review the matter and advise the BBB of their position. The emails contain a complaint number. From there, the email appears to direct recipients to the BBB website (www.bbb.org), but actually directs them to an outside link.
"Phone calls and emails to our BBB this morning indicate that many business owners are returning from a long holiday weekend to find this email in their inboxes," said Heather Clary, Director of Communications for the BBB of Central & Eastern Kentucky. "This email is fraudulent and does not originate from our BBB. The email attachment and link are malicious and we strongly advise not opening or clicking them. If you have, do a virus scan to see if your computer has been infected."
There are some differences businesses can look for in the emails to know whether or not an emailed complaint notice is legitimately from the BBB of Central & Eastern Kentucky.
Complaints from the BBB in Lexington:
- DO contain our Lexington local address and a local 859 area code phone number. They do NOT contain the address of the Council of BBBs in Virginia.
- DO NOT originate from an email address ending with bbb.org. The scam emails have appeared to come from addresses like service@, risk@, or alert@bbb.org.
- DO contain a link to view and respond to the complaint; however, the link has many characters in it. The scam emails direct the recipient to www.bbb.org, which is NOT used by the BBB of Lexington in email complaint notifications.
- DO begin with the number 900. The scam emails have started with other numbers. (It is possible a scam email has a complaint number starting with '9'; verify with the BBB.)
Any business owner who is unsure whether or not an email is genuinely from the BBB may contact the BBB at (859) 259-1008 or 1-800-866-6668 to confirm it.
