PSA: Don’t respond to any Essential emails asking for a photo of personal identification
Essential just can’t catch a break. We’ve finally gotten over that shipping hump and devices are headed out of the door after lengthy delays, but now the company has a potential phishing scandal on their hands.
Several users are reporting that they’ve received emails asking for photo identification to verify their orders, with the email strongly urging that the address should match the one you used as your billing address in your order. You’d be forgiven for thinking this email is legit considering it comes from customercare@essential.com.
But it’s not. We’re not sure how the email was sent. Whether it was from a company hack or an internal issue with a rogue employee, it’s a scary thing indeed.
For their part, Essential says they’re looking into how the email was sent, which seems to at least be confirmation that this was an unexpected occurrence. To make things worse, it seems whoever sent the email out didn’t configure their Google Groups account appropriately, so anyone who was included in that chain will see anyone who happens to respond. It’s just bad, folks.
If you have received the email and haven’t yet responded, don’t. Delete it immediately. If you happened to respond, you’ll want to pay very close attention to your bank account to see if any suspicious charges appear. And we’re not yet sure if you should be worried about potential identity theft issues just yet, though we imagine Essential will look to help you deal with that if their findings turn up a malicious plot.
via Reddit