Here's what you need to know about the malicious emails

Sep 24, 2012 08:19 GMT  ·  By

Renowned real estate firm RE/MAX is warning Australians to be on the lookout for suspicious emails that may appear to originate from the company. The scammy messages have been making the rounds for quite some time, but they've hit Australia only more recently.

“Please be advised of a recent phishing scam, which exploits the RE/MAX brand in an effort to gain consumers' e-mail login credentials,” reads a pop-up alert when accessing remax.com.au.

“Do NOT enter your information. RE/MAX and other reputable organisations will never ask for your password or personal information via e-mail,” the company adds.

According to the scam alert, the emails usually appear to originate from addresses that end in “@remax.com.au” or “@remax.net,” bearing subject lines such as “RE: Hot Property Alert!”, “RE: Check New Properties Around You” and “RE: check out this remax listings in your area.”

The phony notifications contain links that allegedly point to websites on which victims are asked to provide their webmail credentials.

RE/MAX informs that most of the emails carry the company’s name and logo, but they never address recipients by their name. Internauts targeted by such shady emails can file a report at [email protected].

Here are a couple of examples, provided by SmartCompany:

“Am interested in purchasing a property in your territory. I want to find out if you have got any property for sale. How much is it and other details? Please send me a message to my personal Emai: [email protected] Hope to hear from you soon,” reads one variant.

Another one says, “Due to the recent upgrade of our systems, there shall be a removal exercise of all used and unused RE/MAX account. RE/MAX would be shutting down several accounts. You will have to confirm your RE/MAX account. So you are required to logon to your online RE/MAX Account with the provided link bellow.”