Southwest Airlines email scam (not really Southwest)

I got a lovely email, looked exactly like all the legit ones I routinely get from Southwest, saying due to my loyalty I would receive a $100 SWA gift card.  "Click here."  Of course I should have known better, didn't check the sending address which was most definitely not from Southwest.  The click took me to a list of "prizes" from which I could select one.  But, the $100 gift card was not on the list.  Long story short, if you click one of those prizes it goes to another page saying you need to pay some dollars more to cover the shipping, and gives you a page to fill in all your information including cc to cover the shipping.  Yikes!  Thankfully I didn't continue on it, put it in my spam box.  I called Southwest and they are investigating.

One thing, if you get such an email (the $100 gift card), before you delete it or send it to your spam folder take a screen shot of it.  Southwest wanted that and all the details, sending address, date sent, etc.  When I sent mine to my spam box it turned into a mess that wasn't the initial page, of course.

I called the cc company to check if any charges had been made, even though I hadn't given that info.  

Just beware.  I thought I was smarter than to be fooled by something like this.  But it looked so real!!!!

Candy

Thanks, Candy.

I get shit like that all the time from fake Pay-Pal scammers.    You can usually spot them by looking at the email address its being sent from.   Look at the actual address - not the text that appears in your "FROM BOX"    Its usually has got some kind of random letters/numbers.      (ie)    [email protected]

I get all that too, from "businesses" I've never traded with.  I've gotten to where I automatically send them to my spam box, seldom bother to check their 'address'.  But...Southwest?  I was caught off guard, trusting the business and never having had an issue with them.  Grrr.

It's not an issue with Southwest, but instead it's a scam company attempting to appear as though they are Southwest Airlines to steal your money.

Oh, I do know it wasn't Southwest in any form or fashion.  I just trusted the email because it was...well, Southwest Airlines whom I do business with quite often.

It amazes me, though, how these crooks can cop the exact icons, letterheads, etc. of legit businesses.  
Ace Hardware, Khols, CVS (they even write it as C.V.S), not to mention have our email addresses in their systems.   

Southwest is the first and only one I have ever tried to report the problem to.  One SWA agent spent about two hours with me on the phone, as she had to contact people in the fraud department, which likely took up her whole shift.  Those folks were not in the system as if she could organize a conference call or toggle back and forth easily.  She had to put me on hold a lot to get the job done, whatever it entailed.   Had I known to take a screen shot of the initial email it would have helped a bit.

I'm sick of these "Please confirm" spam emails.  I thought this was supposed to stop.  At least my phones, both land line and cell phone give me scam alert caller IDs so I can block them without answering.

Candy