Updated BT Voicemail Phishing Email

[halfhearted]

I got this and half asleep clicked on it. The letter "l" in mail is wrong, otherwise it's reasonably convincing. I sent it to BT anti-phishing. Anyone else seen this?

[Kimberlin]

@halfhearted 

On what device did you click on the link? If a PC or tablet, have you yet run a malware check?

[halfhearted]

I ran Malwarebytes and Windows Defender on the laptop. Didn't find anything. It seems to post 2 types of messages to all contacts. If they're non-BT it sends an email asking about "Amazon" use. If they're BT it sends a copy of the fake voice mail.

[Peter_W]

Thanks for flagging this @halfhearted, and for forwarding it on to our security team too!

Should you be unsure of any emails you receive in the future, it's worth checking our our guide here:

What is a phishing scam? Is the email I have received genuine? | BT Help

Peter

[halfhearted]

While I was talking to a BT technician he mentioned that my email seemed to have been "Gifted", this is something you can do with "Friends & Family". The phone line dropped before I could discuss this so I am none the wiser. I can't find any references to "Friends & Family" on MyBT. It's not possible to ring technicians back so unless they phone you you're stuck. Anyone know how I can de-Gift my address?

[licquorice]

Email sub account addresses can be gifted to family or friends.

https://www.bt.com/help/email/manage-email-account/account-set-up/can-i-move-my-bt-email-address-to-...

[halfhearted]

I can see now that "Family & Friends" no longer exists & that email accounts are managed generally from BT EMAIL in MyBT. How would I know if another address has been created or if my own address has been demoted to "Gifted" status, if you see what I mean?

[licquorice]

It has nothing to do with 'Family and friends', that was related to phone calls.

Your address is not 'demoted', gifting an address is just a means of donating one if your 11 addresses to a third party so they can manage it themselves rather than the originator of the address.

If you created the address yourself rather than having it gifted to you by someone else, it isn't a 'gifted' address.

[gg30340]

I fail to see the relevance of why the BT Technician said that.

A "gifted" email account is one that was made by the BT Broadband account holder who "gifted" it to a friend or family member. In most instance this is usually a parent that makes the email account for their child or spouse.

It gets "gifted" so that the recipient can manage it them selves. This requires the recipient to set up their own BTID and MyBT and then accept the email account.

It remains as part of the broadband account holder' email allowance but they can not do anything with it other than delete it.

See link about "gifted" email addresses

Creating BT Email addresses | BT Help

You can not "de gift" the email account. If you have your own BT Broadband you can "associate" it to your BT Broadband account provided you have had that account prior to 2022 and you have already an email account set up on that BT Broadband account.

See link

Can I move my BT Email address to another account? | BT Help

[halfhearted]

If anyone else has this issue -

I rang BT back to discuss the issue of the "Gifted" status of my email account. If anyone else gets the mysterious message that their email account is "Gifted" after a new BT ID has been set up this is what I was told by a helpful technician -

"Yes, I can confirm that from our end your email account is indeed marked as "Gifted", however, it should make no practical difference to the account or how you can use it."

I asked why this had happened.

"I think it occurs when a new BT ID is being set up and "ACCOUNT MANAGER" rather than "ACCOUNT HOLDER" is selected. If you want I'll delete that BT ID & we can set it up again but this time select "ACCOUNT HOLDER" & that should create a new email account that does not have the "Gifted" status."

So I said "Go ahead." A new account was set up with "ACCOUNT HOLDER" selected. Clearly there's no way I can tell from my end if this has removed the "Gifted" status but I am hoping it has & there will be no further issues.