It all starts with an email purportedly from Dick’s Sporting Goods. “You’ve been chosen!” There’s the promise of a free YETI backpack cooler.
Notice how the email came from a random email address that is most certainly not @dickssportinggoods.com.
Surveys aren’t all that uncommon, but this smells wrong from the start.
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The landing page uses Dick’s Sporting Goods logos and colors.
On a desktop device, the URL makes it clear this is not a Dick’s Sporting Goods page. The URL is usually hidden on mobile devices, which is how they fool people.
There’s a sense of urgency. Hurry, it “expires today.”
The “comments” section is full of convincing testimonials. It’s all fake.
“I’m pretty shocked at the choices given when you reach the end of that really short survey.”
“I decided to take the survey and claim the YETI Hopper M20 Cooler to try and help a friend who I knew really wanted it for his birthday.”
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All of this language is expertly crafted to get you to keep moving forward.
The survey questions read as if it’s actually a retail customs satisfaction survey.
Once you’re done, there’s more urgency. Don’t close the page, or they’ll give your reward to someone else. Hurry, there’s only 2 left in stock.
All you’ve got to do is pay for shipping.
Phew, it’s reserved for you. Just give them your address and “pay shipping cost.”
“Due to great media attention, this queue closes in..” There’s a 5-minute timer intended to increase the sense of urgency.
But wait, you’ll “receive an additional 25% off your entry when paying with Mastercard.”
“Entry”?
Is this for shipping, or are you paying an “entry” fee?
I previously wrote about fake YETI store scams, and a few people chimed in about this new survey scam.
Jess wrote:
I just got an offer allegedly from Dicks Sporting Goods that if I completed a brief survey that I would receive a Yeti backpack cooler for free. I only had to pay the shipping cost. However, when I got to the shipping and billing page, they do not list the shipping cost before you place your order. That’s a major red flag, and I advise caution to anyone receiving a similar offer.
That’s a good point. What if shipping fees are $5,000?
Paul wrote:
My Yeti prize was ?19.73 When I asked customer service to pay by check they refused and referred to terms and conditions. When I read the terms I discovered I would automatically be charged $56.95 monthly for additional surveys. While there are promotional events this is a total SCAM
So the charge is for… monthly surveys? Maybe that’s where the “entry” language comes from.
Don’t fall for this. You didn’t win or earn a free YETI cooler. All you’ll get out of this is a headache as you try to clear charges from your credit card.
In this particular instance, I received a fake email where a scammer impersonates Dick’s Sporting Goods and offers a free YETI product.
There are other similar scams featuring home improvement retails, such as Ace Hardware and Home Depot, and cordless power tool brands such as Dewalt, Milwaukee, and Makita.
Pete wrote:
E-mail said I had won Makita power drill from Ace hardware . Just pay shipping & handling. I did so with my debit card. Week later my bank paid out $39.48 to Convenience Technology (TEL# 8883043348 UT) So I called them. They told me I had purchased a possible chance to win some day . I said Oh no! They said they will cancel my subscription & bill me no more plus I get 20% refund. Joy. Just others beware ! Yes I reported this to ftc.gov
I wrote about this previously – New Email Scams Promise Free Makita and Milwaukee Tools.
These are all fake scams looking to rip you off.
Here are 3 signs of a prize scam, from the FTC:
- You have to pay to get your prize.
- They say paying increases your odds of winning.
- You have to give your financial information.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Be careful.
Rog
…so you’re saying I’m *not* getting my free Yeti cooler???
Stuart
That is correct.
Franck B.
I came here to ask that too
Jbongo
I get these occasionally. Interestingly several have made it past Gmail spam detection. I always laugh when it says “dear customer”. The funny part is my gmail isn’t related to my name, (but they assume the first letter is) so sometimes they’ll guess and it’s a clear indicator that it’s spam.
Stuart
Same here. I got another one today for Kohls, in my inbox as opposed to the spam folder. I’m not sure how they’re managing that, while legit emails go to spam all the time.
Frank
The thing that is stunning in all this is, that one of the world’s biggest companies with countless revenue, who knows how many programmers on staff and AI to back them up ; can’t stop blank emails with one referral url for anderson windows, mcafee, aarp, microsoft, etc to stop from reaching my inboxes – every single day – while the to: email address does not even match my email address. Go figure. Hundreds of from: burneremail@gmail with exact same spam with only a url as body, addressed to somethingcloselymatchingmyemail …
There’s no stopping it, countless emails exactly alike, and nobody to contact at gmail, … nor do they recgnize this issue with to: not matching … don’t they use gmail themselves? don’t they get hundreds of the same spam messages? …
Bonnie
Gmail doesn’t make them money, so I doubt they really care about it. Google seems to only really dedicate effort to Android, google.com, and their advertising platform (where they made all their money). Everything else is a fleeting fancy.
Greg
I have seen so many of various “Congratulations you’ve won” scam emails in the last two months, claiming to represent a wide range of companies.
Blocky
I’ve had v little spam until this past week, and this one punches through twice a day. I’ve had at least a dozen yeti emails.
James
I received this email from Dicks Sporting Goods as well, offering a free Yeti M20 cooler. I noticed the url was from the UK. That raised a red flag. So I Googled “scams associated with winning a free Yeti cooler” and guess what, it was. If it’s too good to be true it probably is.
James+Madara
I get a variation of this and the Ace ad at least once or twice a day.
ToolGuyDan
You need to update your browser, Stuart. Once that little “update” nag on the edge of the toolbar turns red, you *really* need to update; there are typically exploits being found “in the wild” by then.
Also, thank you for the PSA. #TheMoreYouKnow and all that.
Stuart
It does that way too often, and I try to be quick.
I don’t have too many tabs open right now – only 203 in 27 windows – but I sometimes have to hold off when there are tabs/windows that will be lost with a relaunch. (So far, I think my record was 514 tabs in 104 windows. I hit 300+ and 400+ regularly, and it can be a nightmare to relaunch.)
Josh H
I’m not sure about other browsers, but if you’re in Chrome there’s 2 things that can help.
If you don’t have tons of windows open and need to update, or you accidently closed a tab or window you didn’t want to, pressing ctrl+shift+t will reopen them. It works for both tabs and windows!
If you want to condense your tabs into 1 window, I find that using the group feature works well. If you right click on a tab, you’ll find an option to add the tab to a new or existing group. Said groups can be collapsed to hide away any of the tabs you don’t immediately need.
Stuart
I started using Session Buddy a few years ago, after too many Chrome crashes and abrupt relaunches failed to recover closed tabs and windows.
Al
Hello…I just fell for it (yeti backpack) I ended up paying them shipping fee and was excited to “receive” a yeti backpack…about a day later I get a charge of $99.99 that thank God my bank declined payment…the charge happened again and was declined as well. My question is how do I cancel future charges? Am I f*cked now??
Stuart
You should ask your credit card company/bank for advise.
If I were in your shoes, I would request a new credit card number. If your bank blocked the charges, they most likely will block future charges as well.
BUT, who is to say that the scammer won’t sell your info to other scammers, who might use your info to place fraudulent charges?
This scammer has your name, address, phone number, credit card number, expiration date, and security code.
Ian
Not sure how good the spam filters on Gmail or Outlook/Hotmail are, but Yahoo recently seems to have turned theirs off completely. My inbox is flooded with fake emails and scams.
All seems to have gotten much worse, since Yahoo offered their new subscription email. It’s like they are making your inbox unusable, unless you pay them for email.
Robert
Ian, I have the same problem with Yahoo. The other problem their tech support fessed up to is that if you have Yahoo E-mail set up on Apple OIS a devices, it treats those log-ins as attacks. This caused it to believe I was making too many invalid log-in attempts and disabled my E-mail, until I went through the process of picking a new password. Over and Over. The only solution was for us to remove our Yahoo E-mail from 5 Apple devices and only use it on a PC. Even then, it still gets the same problem after a few days, even though We may have not logged in at all during the interim.
Franck B.
I have two Yahoo e-mail addresses for a public facing e-mail account for a web site. I have them set up in several mail readers on many devices to that when mail comes in, notifications are made. The devices are from a wide range of operating systems, including two iPhones and two iPads. I do not have any issues with any of them logging in to Yahoo and retrieving the mail.
The Yahoo mail also still properly puts spam into the bulk mail folder, which I rarely check. And my filters are still working (for instance, anything with “Re:” starting the subject line is discarded because these e-mail addresses do not generate mail). I don’t recall ever receiving spam on these addresses that wasn’t caught, but then they are also not registered with other services like Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, etc.
I’m not a big fan of Yahoo since the VZW takeover but the services I started using about 10 years ago still work fine. If you’re having a problem with it, I suggest you look into it more because it’s still possible to have a trouble-free set up.
Flotsam
useful article thanks for posting this
Scott K
I think I got this from at least 4 variations of fake Dicks email address. I also got a similar one from Kohl’s, too. All of these were caught in my spam folder.
Bill
I assume they didn’t get your info if you didn’t your payment for shipping, correct? Or are they using a keylogger as you go through the process? I got to the end, after receiving about 10 emails that the survey is closing – and then it was “hmm, this seems odd to me” – and didn’t submit the info, but did have the CC info in the form.
I’ll keep an eye on things for sure, but thought I would put this out there as well.
I hate this stuff – it would be so cool if people would spend time with their “talent” or creativity to do bad, and use it for bettering things.
Stuart
Generally, if you submit a form to get to the next step, they get your info. I have abandoned shopping carts before and received “wait, complete checkout!” from companies I don’t have accounts with.
If you don’t submit the info, information *usually* isn’t sent to the host server. Frankly, there’s no way to tell.
eddie sky
I have to keep my yahoo email for legacy reasons, and mostly use if for online orders, but have moved to gmail for the better spam filtering. Yahoo sucks so bad since Verizon bought them, as no one seems to maintain the filters unless you buy their premiere Yahoo membership (nope). But the silly icons (SMS) emoji used in subjects is the clear signal for me. And with Gmail, google filters so many French language emails… its almost silly. But way better job than Yahoo.
These scams are like the Youtube commenters that get Giveaway scams with faked channel user doing it. Many channels now do a PSA that they NEVER offer through the comments and to report any such.
Thanks for this, as its alot of work to detail how it works.
Eric
I got so many of these and the various versions. The report spam button did nothing in Gmail.
Create a filter using *@*.ml as the email address. Send the emails to trash.
No legitimate company will use the .ml top level domain.
Destiny
Went thru this whole “survey” then got to the “Payment for Shipping” page. It obviously didn’t have the cost so I googled it and I’m glad I came across your page because I was about to pull out my wallet.
Stuart
Glad to help!
It’s an impressively well-crafted scam, seemingly designed to distract and hurry people into providing their personal contact and credit card info.
I just hope more people are able to pause and not get caught up in the moment.
Mereane
I am here because I was curious about the shipping charge since it’s not listed on the check out page. Thank you for posting this.
Stuart
Glad to help – thank you for letting me know!
Pikachu
So what can I do if I have already done this do I have to get a new card?
Stuart
Contact your financial institution and ask their fraud department for advice or recommendations.
Pikachu
Ok thank you
A
I keep blocking the emails in my email client but they somehow know how to circumvent my blocking blocking attempts. I’m sure they are always changing or hiding something in the email subject so my email client keeps delivering those annoying Yeti scam emails to me. I wish I could do something to stop them from arriving in my inbox.
Ron Goggler
Always do an internet check on potential scams. Age old adage “If it sounds too good to be true” IT IS!