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Since at least 2021, an email scam has targeted victims with the claim that Norton had renewed their annual membership subscriptions. Some of the scam renewal emails mentioned Norton Total Protection, Norton Total All Round Security, Norton 360, Norton 360 Auto Edition, Norton PC Life, Norton Family All Device, and Norton LifeLock. Turns out, a few of these weren't even real Norton products. We looked into these emails, which are in fact part of a known phishing operation aimed at tricking recipients into divulge private information. The phone number listed in some of the Norton scam emails was 760-248-4214. We called the number knowing that the whole thing was a ruse. We were connected to a scammer who may have been located in a foreign call center. The scammer asked for the invoice number in the email. This is known as a refund scam. The emails claimed that a payment had been successfully processed to renew a Norton subscription. However, this was nothing more than a fake set up for the scam. The goal for the scammers was for consumers to respond by email or phone to ask for a refund for the supposed Norton product renewal. The scammers eventually would ask for bank account or credit card details, claiming that a refund would be processed. In reality, they would take the financial information and attempt to steal funds. One Norton scam email we reviewed was from jamgre549@gmail.com and copied nortoncc2021@outlook.com. It claimed that an annual product membership for Norton Total Protection had been renewed. The email also listed the same phone number that began with the 760 area code. The email addresses and phone number were all managed by scammers: Another Norton scam email was from sarwoo846@gmail.com. It mentioned Norton Total All Round Security. One little red flag in the fake product name was the fact that the scammers chose the words All Round instead of All Around. Once again, nortoncc2021@outlook.com was copied onto the email, and the same phone number was there too. To restate, these email addresses and the phone number were all part of the scam and were not managed by Norton: On Jan. 24, a Reddit user posted a third example of the Norton email renewal scam. It appeared to be a variation of the same thing, likely leading to a fake refund: A fourth email we reviewed came from the email address sienna9355jac@gmail.com. The message copied in consumer946@gmail.com. It read: The scammer's phone number was emailed as 804-742-0254. We called the number but did not receive an answer. The goal here was once again to lure unsuspecting victims to contact the scammers to try to obtain a refund. This would again result in the theft of money from the consumer's financial accounts. A fifth example of the scam email came from the email address gerardriou598@gmail.com (purportedly someone named Gerard Riou). We also noticed that nortoncustomer58@gmail.com was copied into the message. It read: The phone number listed by the scammers was 844-678-9560. This email went around in November 2021 from an account named Bible Prophecy with the email address rohrbaceydewitt@gmail.com: The scammer's phone number was 919-617-6616. Another message that went around in January 2022 was purportedly from an account named Norton.Alert with the email address Qy8hkBiNo9G@q4xdysd.adjy.bourecanapshi.com. The end of the email mentioned someone named Erick McBride. It might not have been a renewal or refund scam, but it was definitely a scam: Also in January 2022, an email from an account named Threat Protection showed the email address aqfmd9jf55@prefeiricpl.com and said it came via nats.quarkfive.net. Just like the previous example, this one might not have been a refund or renewal scam, but it was definitely a scam: It was received in the Comic Sans font: In this ninth example, the scam email came from naoetancet6386@gmail.com, copied in nortoncc2022@outlook.com, and mentioned the phone number 937-340-1969: This example claimed to come from the company Intuit from quickbooks@notification.intuit.com. However, a check of the email's information showed it likely came from genstjeni667890@outlook.com. The email address tester@doli.com was also copied in. The phone number listed was 888-913-5992: The phone number 806-839-6579 showed up in this one, as did the email addresses william9089tur@gmail.com and consumer7001@gmail.com: Another message from the same email address had a different subject line: START A NEW ONE #IYG4762DC. This version of the scam email came from sttrojeprrejui28js@gmail.com: This one used the phone number 855-592-1827. The best course of action is to delete scam emails that make claims about Norton, renewals, and refunds. For more details, we recommend visiting the company's official website, Norton.com. The company published a page about these renewal refund scams. They also listed several email addresses Norton has used to send official correspondence: norton@nortonlifelock.com, norton@secure.norton.com, ems@norton.com, lifelock@secure.norton.com, and information@mail.nortonstore.hk. These can be trusted, according to the company.
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