Just got email from Google Adsense

... saying they'd pay $50 to sign up.

[internetheaven]

I just got an email asking me to sign up to Google Adsense, in return they would give me $50 to spend on Adwords. Strange thing is, they sent the email to my registered Adsense email address. Also, the email was from "[e-mail] [google@____.com]". ALSO, the URL for the free $50 sign-up went nowhere.

Anyone got any ideas where this came from or what it is about?

[edited by: Jenstar at 3:57 pm (utc) on Nov. 26, 2004]
[edit reason] No specifics please, as per TOS [/edit]

[Jettie]

probably spam or a joke

[trillianjedi]

google@____.com

There's the answer.......

TJ

[edited by: Jenstar at 3:58 pm (utc) on Nov. 26, 2004]
[edit reason] Change to quote as per above [/edit]

[diamondgrl]

But it's FREE!

It can't be spam ... Can it? Please don't say it's so.

[Macro]

LOL, diamondgrl.

[europeforvisitors]

Well, at least they weren't being too obvious. You know it's spam when they offer free Viagra and Vicodin with every sign-up. :-)

[roitracker]

Doesn't appear to be spam - I got one to my AdWords email address (no way they'd know this unless Google disclosed it), and the email blanked out above belongs to an email service provider.

I do think the email campaign is pretty poorly done though - using the "standard" AdSense page as the landing page is a big mistake too IMO. It's a a bit like sending AdWords traffic to your home page!

[newads]

some one is trapping to tarnish your image or earnings or identity..

it looks like you should be careful and write a mail to google support

[internetheaven]

Why would someone spam this stuff out? How do they benefit from it? The link simply goes to the Google site and there is nothing else being sold in the email. That's what confused me ... it seemed like junk-mail, but no-one could possibly benefit from it ...

[ncw164x]

look in the message source of the email to check the return path, it could be a spoof but looks like it goes to google?

[trillianjedi]

but looks like it goes to google?

Original post was edited for TOS reasons, but no, it didn't go to google....

TJ

[ncw164x]

When you reply they know the email address is then a live one and you will get spammed with everything, the spammers are trying harder to get you to respond and there is more of a chance you will reply if it's relating to something with google

[edited by: ncw164x at 11:22 pm (utc) on Nov. 26, 2004]

[Nikke]

was it a text mail or html mail?

If an html mail, it could contain linked images tracking your address, setting a cookie, trying to install something on your computer...

[valeyard]

Two guesses:

1) Phishing. The site you end up at might be a copy of G, not the real thing, and at some point you get the message "Thank you. To receive your $50 bonus please enter your credit card details..."

2) Someone with a grudge against G sending spam to get them swamped with irate customers yelling "Where's my $50"?

Either way I wouldn't touch it.

[internetheaven]

No, I'm always aware of the latest scams - the upside of having a dodgy mind myself! - and it definately went to Google's own site. Maybe related to number 2 which you suggested though, they do have a lot of irate adwords and adsense customers.

The email was in plain text too, otherwise I would have checked for anything hidden. It just had the one link/URL pointing to the supposed page.

One thought I did have: after checked the web site of the sender (sorry, mods removed it from my first post) it goes to a mailer software's homepage. Maybe, by faking Adwords/Google as a customer, they hoped that (like me) people would check out the third party software Google were using. A customer like that would certainly lend credibility to the software.

Now the bigger question, how in the hell did they get my email address and know that I had an Adsense/Adwords account? Google selling off its mail addresses? I think I'd better go check those terms and conditions again ....

[roitracker]

Just had another look at the email headers - although it's obviously been done by someone without much email marketing experience (poorly formatted email, looks like spam, no specific campaign landing page, etc), it does look like it's legit.

Now the bigger question, how in the hell did they get my email address and know that I had an Adsense/Adwords account?

This is my biggest concern too.