Millions of people are receiving the Costco survey reward email scam spam, with Costco survey rewards of “up to $100” promised. Others get email promising a “Costco survey free gift”. They are all scams, don’t fall for them! Says Costco, “These offers are not from Costco Wholesale. You should not visit any links provided in messages such as these, and you should not provide the sender any personal information.”
Here is what a typical Costco survey scam email looks like (this is an actual sample, with the blank lines removed for ease of reading):
From: Melanie Herta
To: (email address redacted)
Subject: Congratulations Costco Customer. up to $1OO Reward 1669161
Click Here For The Survey & Pick Up To $100 Bonus
Start the Survey & Choose Your Bonus Here
Fast! Deal Expires in 24 Hours.
l26′ E. TWENTY-THIRD St. NEW YORK NEW YORK IooIo
To no longer receive this message, Go Here
—
Note that, bizarrely, the zip code they use, which should be 10010 is actually “IooIo”, which suggests that it was copied and pasted from a PDF or other online non-text-based source. (At first we thought it was an effort to get around spam filters but that actually would trip a spam filter’s spidey-sense.)
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While lots of retailers and other businesses are spoofed by scammers, and so are the victims of scams just as are the people on the receiving end of the scam, Costco seems to be a scammer favorite. Costco actually goes so far as to keep an up-to-date list of Costco scams which come to their attention, for which we commend them. That list includes many, many types of scams, some of which we hadn’t even been aware! They include:
- Fraudulent Website
- Fraudulent Cart Notification
- Fraudulent Autumn Giveaway Email
- Fraudulent Facebook Offer
- Fraudulent Survey Text
- Fraudulent Satisfaction Survey
- Fraudulent Facebook Post
- Fraudulent Survey
- Texts Regarding Loyalty Reward
- Overcharge Reimbursement Texts
- Survey with Exclusive Offers
- Free Television
- Coronavirus Stimulus
- Exclusive Giveaway
- Fake Interview Confirmation
- Fraudulent Executive Rewards Redemption
- Citi Rewards Direct Deposit Scam
- Redeem your gift card!
- Supermarket Customer Sweepstakes Raffle Draw
- Text Survey
- USPS Scam
- Letter Survey
Each of these includes an example of the scam, so if you are a Costco member it’s really worth checking out those examples which, again, you can find here. (If you aren’t a Costco member then while you may still receive the Costco scams, we assume you’ll just toss them as being inapplicable and poorly targeted spam.)
Of course, as we tell people constantly, you shouldn’t visit any links that show up unexpectedly in your email, no matter how legitimate they look. If the email claims to be from a company or institution with which you do business, then go directly to their website and log in, instead of clicking on the link in the email.
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The billing information associated with the promised Costco survey reward (shipping charge for a digital watch) was Residence Accessories which appears to be a legitimate company but not one associated with this type of business. I bit on the scam and was billed $13.62 CAD. Recently, a charge attempt was made by residenceaccessories.com for $133.82 CAD which I blocked resulting in having to cancel my credit card.
when this happens call the 888 number and say you are calling the attorney General. this will make the scammers give full refund