Xbox Scam Warning Issued, Do Not Click These Emails

Xbox fans have been issued a very specific scam warning by a member of the community, because some nefarious folks are trying to catch people out with an old email con (that is making me feel extremely ancient).

The internet is a funny place. Things have evolved and changed so much online over the past decade, to the point that I am constantly having to warn my poor, elderly parents of all the new, devious ways that scammers are using to take advantage of people’s lack of technical know-how.

And yet, one of the most recent Xbox-related swindles is something that I’m pretty sure even my elderly parents would have seen before– and, somehow, it would seem some people are getting caught out by what must be one of the oldest email scam tricks in the book.

Over on the r/xbox subreddit, one user has warned people about the danger of clicking on an unassuming email from (what appears to be) Microsoft, in a thread titled “Just a PSA to keep your accounts safe”.

Xbox Series X designs featured on official Xbox website, Microsoft

The “Password Reset Request” email that user FinalMil3 received almost looks to be genuine at first glance, but you may have to squint a little to determine the simultaneously clever and stupid trick that the scammers have used to make it look authentic.

In case it wasn’t entirely obvious from the post itself, that email isn’t from Microsoft. It’s actually from “rnicrosoft”. Damn, ok, now that I’ve typed it out myself I can see how newbies are getting caught here.

The “m” in the Microsoft email isn’t actually an “m”-- it’s an r and an n, which, when typed out side by side, looks an awful lot like the letter m.

The funny thing is… this email scam might be more ancient than some of you reading this article (which probably explains why certain folks haven’t seen it before).

I legitimately remember receiving scam emails using the exact same “rnicrosoft” trick back in the very early 2000s, which would mean that there’s a good chance that anyone 20 and younger somehow hasn’t seen this one. God, my back hurts just from typing that.

Honestly kind of bizarre to see this one pop up again after so long. Next, you’ll tell me that people are still falling for those Nigerian Prince scam emails from the early 90s that used to– oh, no. I just looked it up and, apparently, people are still falling for those.

The older generations are so cooked when people start using AI videos to scam them.