How can I verify an odd Email came from Verizon?

[Plztakemymoney]

Today an email arrived apparently from Verizon, with the following message:

(quote)

Dear Valued Verizon Customer,

Thank you for providing an updated email address for your Verizon account on a recent visit to Verizon.com or call to Verizon. To verify this email address, please select the 'Verify Email Address' link below and enter your zip code.

Verify Email Address

Verifying your email address improves the security of your Verizon account. Once you've verified your email address, you will be able to:

Get important updates about your account and services 
Receive a code for your online account if you forget your password or get locked out 
Protect your identity and help keep your account secure 

Thank you for choosing Verizon.

Sincerely,

Your Verizon Team

(unquote)

**********All well and good, but I have NOT HAD ANY "recent visit" to Verizon.com for MONTHS until this came.

************How can I find out if Verizon actually sent me this specific email?

PS: Incidently, trying to "post" this very message containing that "copied/pasted" email content here resulted in this error message:

" Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied."

That makes it even MORE suspect.

[PJL]

---

@Plztakemymoney wrote:

Today an email arrived apparently from Verizon, with the following message:

(quote)

Dear Valued Verizon Customer,

Thank you for providing an updated email address for your Verizon account on a recent visit to Verizon.com or call to Verizon. To verify this email address, please select the 'Verify Email Address' link below and enter your zip code.

Verify Email Address

Verifying your email address improves the security of your Verizon account. Once you've verified your email address, you will be able to:

Get important updates about your account and services 
Receive a code for your online account if you forget your password or get locked out 
Protect your identity and help keep your account secure 

Thank you for choosing Verizon.

Sincerely,

Your Verizon Team

(unquote)

**********All well and good, but I have NOT HAD ANY "recent visit" to Verizon.com for MONTHS until this came.

************How can I find out if Verizon actually sent me this specific email?

PS: Incidently, trying to "post" this very message containing that "copied/pasted" email content here resulted in this error message:

" Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied."

That makes it even MORE suspect.

---

Most email clients allow you to view the embedded header information.  This should show the path of the message from the sender to you.  It may give you insight as to where the message came from.

P.S. the posting error is a bug in this forum's software (Lithium).  I've seen it myself more times than I can count sadly.

[Plztakemymoney]

Thank you.... I already checked that and it APPEARS to be legit from Verizon, but is there is NO way to explain WHY I would receive notice that I just updated my email address/info and to "click this" when I have NEVER done such an info update in a decade?

[kaytabor30]

pjl first of all the header is most likely what they call "spoofed", meaning it's hiding the real scammer. myself i filter

verizon and it's "so called important mail" they want to send you.

fyi to filter use the from contains option

[Plztakemymoney]

Please use the "reply to" button for the message you really are responding to so you don't waste a person's time.

You are "replying to" a person who gave ME an answer to MY question, and if you would like to speak to that person, MY thread is not the best thread to "reply" to, as then an email is sent to ME stating I have received a response in the forums, which I have obviously not as your information is completely useless to me and also unrelated to my question regarding why Verizon stated I "recently contacted" them when in fact I did not.

Please go trolling somewhere else.

[KaLin]

---

@PJL wrote:

---

@Plztakemymoney wrote:

Today an email arrived apparently from Verizon, with the following message:

(quote)

Dear Valued Verizon Customer,

Thank you for providing an updated email address for your Verizon account on a recent visit to Verizon.com or call to Verizon. To verify this email address, please select the 'Verify Email Address' link below and enter your zip code.

Verify Email Address

Verifying your email address improves the security of your Verizon account. Once you've verified your email address, you will be able to:

Get important updates about your account and services 
Receive a code for your online account if you forget your password or get locked out 
Protect your identity and help keep your account secure 

Thank you for choosing Verizon.

Sincerely,

Your Verizon Team

(unquote)

**********All well and good, but I have NOT HAD ANY "recent visit" to Verizon.com for MONTHS until this came.

************How can I find out if Verizon actually sent me this specific email?

PS: Incidently, trying to "post" this very message containing that "copied/pasted" email content here resulted in this error message:

" Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied."

That makes it even MORE suspect.

---

Most email clients allow you to view the embedded header information.  This should show the path of the message from the sender to you.  It may give you insight as to where the message came from.

P.S. the posting error is a bug in this forum's software (Lithium).  I've seen it myself more times than I can count sadly.

---

You will get this message when copying/pasting unless you use the word editor in the text editor toolbar.

Copying/pasting into the word editor will strip the invalid HTML and post your text without any error messages.

[Plztakemymoney]

Thanks for your reply to an interesting but relatively unimportant portion of my message.

Perhaps you can tell me who I'm supposed to contact (outside these forums, obviously, as this appears to be the wrong place) to get an answer to the following: 

My main question is why Verizon is stating, via an email to me, that I just recently accessed my account and updated personal info when in fact nothing has been updated in years. For that matter, Verizon.com itself has not been accessed here for MONTHS now, and I'd like to know WHO accessed and updated my account information.

Is there a place I can email? Or call? What department handles this type of issue?

[PJL]

---

@KaLin wrote:

---

@PJL wrote:

---

@Plztakemymoney wrote:

Today an email arrived apparently from Verizon, with the following message:

(quote)

Dear Valued Verizon Customer,

Thank you for providing an updated email address for your Verizon account on a recent visit to Verizon.com or call to Verizon. To verify this email address, please select the 'Verify Email Address' link below and enter your zip code.

Verify Email Address

Verifying your email address improves the security of your Verizon account. Once you've verified your email address, you will be able to:

Get important updates about your account and services 
Receive a code for your online account if you forget your password or get locked out 
Protect your identity and help keep your account secure 

Thank you for choosing Verizon.

Sincerely,

Your Verizon Team

(unquote)

**********All well and good, but I have NOT HAD ANY "recent visit" to Verizon.com for MONTHS until this came.

************How can I find out if Verizon actually sent me this specific email?

PS: Incidentally, trying to "post" this very message containing that "copied/pasted" email content here resulted in this error message:

" Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied."

That makes it even MORE suspect.

---

Most email clients allow you to view the embedded header information.  This should show the path of the message from the sender to you.  It may give you insight as to where the message came from.

P.S. the posting error is a bug in this forum's software (Lithium).  I've seen it myself more times than I can count sadly.

---

You will get this message when copying/pasting unless you use the word editor in the text editor toolbar.

Copying/pasting into the word editor will strip the invalid HTML and post your text without any error messages.

---

KaLin, I get the posting error all the time and I NEVER paste anything into the message like you suggest as being the issue.  I get it when I simply quote a message that I am replying to.  In fact, I just now got the error when I was trying to post this reply.  This is a well documented issue that was discussed in the Community Leader's forum and dropped by Verizon/Lithium.

I truly apologize to this thread's OP, but I really had to respond to KaLin's assumption of what was happening when they knew not about which they replied.  (Other words come to mind in response KaLin's comment but my parents taught me not to use them.)

[PJL]

---

@kaytabor30 wrote:

pjl first of all the header is most likely what they call "spoofed", meaning it's hiding the real scammer. myself i filter

verizon and it's "so called important mail" they want to send you.

fyi to filter use the from contains option

---

I truly apologize to this thread's OP for answering this, but my advice to look at the header is still valid regardless of kaytabor30's post.  Yes, a header can be spoofed, but tracking backwards in the headers list of email relays can give insight as to that fact.  Only the initial and maybe one or very few hops can be fully spoofed.  Once it hits a "neutral evironment" (one not controlled by the sender) then the servers listed are valid because each server add itself to the header as it processes email, and defined in the SMTP specification.

So in this case, if the track back shows all Verizon internal servers (which it should if it came from Verizon), then it probably isn't spoofed.  (I just looked at the trace for a known Verizon email, and it showed all Verizon servers in the relay of the message.)  However, if the track back looks strange at a point back, then it probably is spoofed.

I ran an email/antivirus service for a 130,000 user corporation, and we did header analysis of this sort all of the time.  It is possible and very beneficial in identifying if a message is authentic or spoofed.

[kaytabor30]

kaytabor30 wrote:

pjl first of all the header is most likely what they call "spoofed", meaning it's hiding the real scammer. myself i filter

verizon and it's "so called important mail" they want to send you.

fyi to filter use the from contains option

---

I truly apologize to this thread's OP for answering this, but my advice to look at the header is still valid regardless of kaytabor30's post.  Yes, a header can be spoofed, but tracking backwards in the headers list of email relays can give insight as to that fact.  Only the initial and maybe one or very few hops can be fully spoofed.  Once it hits a "neutral evironment" (one not controlled by the sender) then the servers listed are valid because each server add itself to the header as it processes email, and defined in the SMTP specification.

So in this case, if the track back shows all Verizon internal servers (which it should if it came from Verizon), then it probably isn't spoofed.  (I just looked at the trace for a known Verizon email, and it showed all Verizon servers in the relay of the message.)  However, if the track back looks strange at a point back, then it probably is spoofed.

I ran an email/antivirus service for a 130,000 user corporation, and we did header analysis of this sort all of the time.  It is possible and very beneficial in identifying if a message is authentic or spoofed.

pjl i can tell you without a doubt that email is spoofed. ferthermore verizon does not ask for imformation via email.

you ran a email n anti virus service huh no offense but lol