PointsBet Cryptocurrency Promotion Email Is A Scam — Delete It
An email scam appearing to come from PointsBet Sportsbook and touting a cryptocurrency giveaway went out to many customers Thursday morning.
PointsBet customer service is looking into the matter, and urging customers to not click the link inside the email.
Playinmichigan received the following response when reporting the email to customer service:
“We are urgently looking into the email that you received. Please do not click any link in the email. We will follow-up as soon as possible.”
Not long after, PointsBet released the following statement on Twitter:
— PointsBet Sportsbook (@PointsBetUSA) May 11, 2023
Some customers also received the same message in a subsequent email.
UPDATE: PointsBet sent another follow-up email to customers Thursday afternoon. It assured them there was no breach of account management or internal systems:
“Thank you for your patience as we quickly resolved an issue related to a phishing attempt this morning. PointsBet would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to customers.
We can confirm this was a phishing attempt made to our mailing list and the 3rd party did not have visibility of individual email addresses. There was no breach of core player account management or internal systems.
We again apologize for any inconvenience.”
PointsBet crypto email is likely a phishing scam
The email hit inboxes shortly before 11 a.m., and looked legit enough. The sender was “PointsBet Customer Relations“, included the PointsBet logo and came from a mail (dot) pointsbet (dot) com domain.
The email hit inboxes shortly before 11 a.m., and looked legit enough. The sender was “PointsBet Customer Relations“, included the PointsBet logo and came from a mail (dot) pointsbet (dot) com domain.But tell-tale signs of an email scam were present, as well, starting with “[Urgent]” leading off the subject line.
The first paragraph featured a typo, placing a period after an exclamation point to end a sentence. It also asked customers to send “any amount of cryptocurrency, and we’ll send you back double the amount.” Not for a bonus bet or site credit, but simply that the customer’s crypto would be doubled.
An unsubscribe link was also sloppily pasted in full at the bottom of the email.
Still, it was well-crafted enough to be dangerous.
Email scam comes as rumors of PointsBet sale to Fanatics pick up steam
While there’s never a good time for an email scam, this is exceptionally bad for PointsBet. As the email was hitting inboxes, rumors of Fanatics purchasing PointsBets’ US division were ramping up.
PointsBet CEO Sam Swanell confirmed during the company’s most recent quarterly conference call that a sale was in advanced negotiations.
Shares of PointsBet stock were up in trading Thursday morning, likely because of the Fanatics speculation. PointsBet is one of 15 online sportsbooks in Michigan.
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