{"id":1220,"date":"2025-12-02T10:06:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T15:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/?p=1220"},"modified":"2026-02-16T11:06:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T16:06:45","slug":"amazon-item-recall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/2025\/12\/02\/amazon-item-recall\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Item Recall"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Why this looks valid:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"7,0,0\"><strong>Safety Scare:<\/strong> They use scary words like &#8220;<strong>recall<\/strong>&#8221; and &#8220;<strong>safety standards<\/strong>&#8221; to make you feel like you must act fast to protect yourself.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"7,1,0\"><strong>Professional Tone:<\/strong> The text is polite, apologizes, and thanks you for your business. It sounds like a big company wrote it.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"7,2,0\"><strong>Promise of Money:<\/strong> They offer a &#8220;<strong>full refund<\/strong>,&#8221; which is a powerful incentive to click the link immediately before checking if it&#8217;s real.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why this is phishing?<\/h2>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4\">A legitimate recall notice from Amazon would <strong>not <\/strong>look like this text message. Before you ever click a link in a text, look for these simple clues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-path-to-node=\"5,0,0\"><strong>Missing Details: <\/strong>The text mentions a vague &#8220;<strong>item purchased in November 2025<\/strong>&#8221; (or a different non-specific date) with no name or order number.\n<ul>\n<li data-path-to-node=\"5,0,0\"><strong>What Amazon Would Do:<\/strong> A real notice would <strong>name the exact product<\/strong> (e.g., &#8220;The XYZ Coffee Maker&#8221;) and likely include your specific <strong>Order ID<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li data-path-to-node=\"5,0,0\"><strong>The Pressure Link:<\/strong> It <strong>demands you click a link <\/strong>in the text to get a refund or more information.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>What Amazon Would Do:<\/strong> Amazon <strong>NEVER<\/strong> asks you to click a link in a text message to log in or submit financial details. They want you to log into the official app or website yourself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li data-path-to-node=\"5,0,0\"><strong>High Pressure:<\/strong> It says you must &#8220;<strong>stop using this product immediately<\/strong>&#8221; to create panic and rush you into clicking the link.\n<ul data-path-to-node=\"7,0,1\">\n<li>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"7,0,1,0,0\"><strong>What Amazon Would Do: <\/strong>While safety is urgent, they provide clear, <strong>official channels<\/strong> you can check <strong>yourself<\/strong>, not just a random text link.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Additional Notes:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you think you&#8217;ve fallen for a scam? Did you share personal information? Downloaded malicious content? Please contact the IT Service Desk at <a href=\"tel:973-655-7971\">973-655-7971<\/a>\u00a0option 1 or email <a href=\"mailto:itservicedesk@montclair.edu\">itservicedesk@montclair.edu<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Use the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/information-technology\/security\/pab\/\">Knowbe4 Phish Alert Button (PAB)<\/a> to report malicious emails directly to the Information Security team for review. If you are not using the Gmail client please forward the email to <a href=\"mailto:phishfiles@montclair.edu\">phishfiles@montclair.edu<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Always use the &#8220;hover over&#8221; technique to check web links before clicking! For more security tips please visit our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/information-technology\/security\/security-tips\/\">Security Tips<\/a> page.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why this looks valid: Safety Scare: They use scary words like &#8220;recall&#8221; and &#8220;safety standards&#8221; to make you feel like you must act fast to protect yourself. Professional Tone: The text is polite, apologizes, and thanks you for your business. It sounds like a big company wrote it. Promise of Money: They offer a &#8220;full [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":1221,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1352,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions\/1352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/phish-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}