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<blockquote data-quote="always_forever" data-source="post: 1050397" data-attributes="member: 92363">Thanks so much for your reply.&nbsp; I agree that it does look legit.Typed which email by mistake?&nbsp; And how a gmail address even arrive in my outlook inbox without it being obvious that it was a forward of some sort simply by looking at the email itself? The &quot;To&quot; field was a gmail address that I don&#039;t have control over and don&#039;t think I ever had.&nbsp; It&#039;s very similar to one I do have and uses my exact name.I don&#039;t understand how in the world an email sent to a gmail account could arrive in my outlook inbox as there was no mention of my hotmail address at all other than in the header.&nbsp; It doesn&#039;t appear as a forwarded email at first glance which I&#039;ve never seen before.&nbsp; It was referenced in the header several times (with forwarding information) and here are some excerpts that might help make sense of this:sender ip is xxx.xx.xxx.xx smtp.rcpttodomain=hotmail.com smtp.mailfrom=gmail.com;received: by mail-lf1-f48.google.com with SMTP for &lt;<a href="mailto:xxxxxx@hotmail.com">xxxxxx@hotmail.com</a>X-Forwarded-To: <a href="mailto:xxxxxx@hotmail.com">xxxxxx@hotmail.com</a>X-Forwarded-For: <a href="mailto:xxxxxx@gmail.com">xxxxxx@gmail.com</a> <a href="mailto:xxxxxx@hotmail.com">xxxxxx@hotmail.com</a>Delivered-To: <a href="mailto:xxxxxx@gmail.com">xxxxxx@gmail.com</a>Also, abuseipdb.com shows the ISP being Google LLC with the IP in the header as being reported for abuse 49 times for such things as Port Scanning, SMTP Bruteforce attempts, multiple sign-in attempts from blocked location, crypto email spam with infected PDF, and IP permits gmail user to send phishing emails.If this was merely a mistyped email somewhere (was it the gmail or hotmail that would have been input?), why did that person who is using a gmail account with my name also know my personal hotmail address?&nbsp; That seems like it&#039;s malicious and not an honest mistake.&nbsp; It just doesn&#039;t add up.Best I can tell, assuming that it&#039;s a legit email from Microsoft, is that someone (who knows my personal hotmail email address) signed up for a gmail account in my name (or already had it prior), set up a forward in their gmail account to my hotmail (or somehow associated the hotmail account with their gmail account otherwise), and then signed up for a Microsoft account.Why though if they knew that they wouldn&#039;t be able to retrieve the code unless they thought that they could somehow?&nbsp; To me, this seems like either an identity theft attempt or a potential account takeover attempt of some sort.&nbsp; If this is a scammer, it seems like they went to some lengths and I&#039;d like to know what they&#039;re trying to do so I can protect myself.&nbsp; This really does seem malicious to me but what really bothers me is that, if it is, I don&#039;t know what the ploy is so I can&#039;t defend myself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="always_forever, post: 1050397, member: 92363"] Thanks so much for your reply. I agree that it does look legit. Typed which email by mistake? And how a gmail address even arrive in my outlook inbox without it being obvious that it was a forward of some sort simply by looking at the email itself? The "To" field was a gmail address that I don't have control over and don't think I ever had. It's very similar to one I do have and uses my exact name. I don't understand how in the world an email sent to a gmail account could arrive in my outlook inbox as there was no mention of my hotmail address at all other than in the header. It doesn't appear as a forwarded email at first glance which I've never seen before. It was referenced in the header several times (with forwarding information) and here are some excerpts that might help make sense of this: sender ip is xxx.xx.xxx.xx smtp.rcpttodomain=hotmail.com smtp.mailfrom=gmail.com; received: by mail-lf1-f48.google.com with SMTP for <[email]xxxxxx@hotmail.com[/email] X-Forwarded-To: [email]xxxxxx@hotmail.com[/email] X-Forwarded-For: [email]xxxxxx@gmail.com[/email] [email]xxxxxx@hotmail.com[/email] Delivered-To: [email]xxxxxx@gmail.com[/email] Also, abuseipdb.com shows the ISP being Google LLC with the IP in the header as being reported for abuse 49 times for such things as Port Scanning, SMTP Bruteforce attempts, multiple sign-in attempts from blocked location, crypto email spam with infected PDF, and IP permits gmail user to send phishing emails. If this was merely a mistyped email somewhere (was it the gmail or hotmail that would have been input?), why did that person who is using a gmail account with my name also know my personal hotmail address? That seems like it's malicious and not an honest mistake. It just doesn't add up. Best I can tell, assuming that it's a legit email from Microsoft, is that someone (who knows my personal hotmail email address) signed up for a gmail account in my name (or already had it prior), set up a forward in their gmail account to my hotmail (or somehow associated the hotmail account with their gmail account otherwise), and then signed up for a Microsoft account. Why though if they knew that they wouldn't be able to retrieve the code unless they thought that they could somehow? To me, this seems like either an identity theft attempt or a potential account takeover attempt of some sort. If this is a scammer, it seems like they went to some lengths and I'd like to know what they're trying to do so I can protect myself. This really does seem malicious to me but what really bothers me is that, if it is, I don't know what the ploy is so I can't defend myself. [/QUOTE]

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