Victim

Many people have fallen victim to online scams through phishing or other various methods. At my job I deal with this on a regular basis, and although I've never fallen victim to it, I've talked to many who have.

I've seen many customers fall victim to phishing attempts where the scammer pretends to be from my company. The email tricks them into replying with their password or billing info. In this case, it's almost always their password. The scammers use the password to login to their account with us, and then create more email addresses under that customer's account. They use these emails to scam more people, it's an endless cycle. Each account we have can make up to 9 free mailboxes on their account, the spammers know this, and take full advantage.

As a result of the succeeded phishing attempt, the customer's account is usually suspended due to a violation of our Terms of Service. The account is flagged for suspicious/spam activity, even though the customer didn't do it. They call us wondering why they can't access the internet, and that's when we figure out that they fell for the scam, giving their password out, and ultimately getting their account deactivated. We reactivate their accounts, but we tell them to delete or report the scams, and to never respond.