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IKEA 75th birthday voucher scam email

Periodic giveaways of various gifts, such as coupons, freebies and vouchers, is a common thing in the commerce world. That’s certainly a great opportunity for customers to make purchases on the cheap, but at the same time it’s a godsend for cybercriminals. The recent IKEA 75th birthday scam is currently circulating via WhatsApp and other online channels in order to wheedle out victims’ personal information.

What is the IKEA 75th birthday voucher scam?

Getting people on the hook in different ways is what online crooks are really proficient at. To this end, they employ the ‘best’ practices of social engineering in general and phishing in particular. In a tricky move, an unidentified cybercriminal crew has lately made up a catchy occasion to lure numerous mobile and computer users into handing over details that shouldn’t belong in anyone else’s hands. Here’s what this scam is about. The threat actors have been sending fake WhatsApp messages and emails on behalf of IKEA, an international furniture retail heavyweight with Dutch roots. The bulk of these booby-trapped promo messages are reportedly being received by users in the UAE and Singapore.

The information provided in the IKEA 75th birthday voucher scam notifications sounds way too good to be true, and that’s the first red flag to watch out for. It goes, literally, “Hey !!, IKEA is giving away a free voucher of $500 ! To celebrate its 75th birthday, you can get your free Voucher too! Don’t miss it, click here to get your free $500 Voucher from IKEA: [rogue email address] enjoy, and thanks me later!.” Such an alleged generosity is definitely a giveaway of this fraud, but still, some people fall for it and hit the embedded hyperlink, only to end up on a bogus IKEA page asking for the visitor’s PII (personally identifiable information) so that the person can claim their purported voucher. These details typically include full name, address, credit card number, CVV2 code and the like. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand how the unscrupulous scammers can take advantage of this data.

One more red flag about this whole ruse is the spelling. The phrase “thanks me later”, several extra spaces, punctuation errors and typos in the IKEA 75th birthday voucher scam messages should encourage a prudent user to treat them with quite a bit of paranoia and caution. IKEA has issued an official statement on social media regarding this fraud, emphasizing that they “have not initiated these activities” and strongly recommending the targeted online shoppers to refrain from clicking on any suspicious links and sharing their personal information. If you happen to have clicked on the rogue link, be sure to close the impostor site and check your computer for drive-by malware that might have got in.

IKEA 75th birthday voucher email automatic removal

The extermination of IKEA 75th birthday voucher scam can be efficiently accomplished with reliable security software. Sticking to the automatic cleanup technique ensures that all components of the infection get thoroughly wiped out from your system.

1. Download recommended security utility and get your PC checked for malicious objects by selecting the Start Computer Scan option

Download IKEA 75th birthday voucher remover

2. The scan will come up with a list of detected items. Click Fix Threats to get the email removed from your system. Completing this phase of the cleanup process is most likely to lead to complete eradication of the infection. However, it might be a good idea to consider ascertaining the email is gone for good.

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