Quick Answer: Geek Squad scam emails help by teaching people to verify sender addresses and payment methods, but hurt by potentially tricking victims into calling fraudulent phone numbers like 800-892-2973. The key protection is checking that emails come from official Best Buy domains, not random Gmail addresses, and remembering that legitimate services don’t send blind carbon copy notifications.
I just received an email claiming to be from Geek Squad. The first reaction nearly everyone will have to an email like this is bewilderment.
My heart also jumped a beat, and I’m used to fielding scams for others.
Each weekday I send one short email: one money story that caught my attention, why it might matter to you, and one manageable thing you can do with it. A couple of minutes, and a dad joke.
In the latest issue (Oct 16): The check that looks like a scam may be real
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But that panic only lasted a second. Once I looked at who sent the email to confirm it was from Best Buy or the Geek Squad, I knew this was a scam.
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Two things to look for here. First, this was sent from some random Gmail address. That is not Best Buy. The second clue is I was a blind carbon copy recipient, and the email was not sent to me directly.
Another clue in the message was it talked about debiting my account. Since I never used debit cards for security protection and I never subscribed to anything using my bank account directly, that confirmed this is a scam message to beware of.
This is an excellent time to remind everyone that you should NEVER use a debit card if you want to protect your bank account. Read Credit Card or Debit Card: The Great Debate. It’s Not Even Close.
The goal of the email appears to be to get you to call the telephone number 800-892-2973.
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So happy that an older friend called me about this before replying. FTC has already sent out a warning about this scam in particular, so I forwarded her a copy to confirm the scam.
Happy to help.