From World of Raids:
There are several things that really concerned me about this email:
1) The email address is almost entirely indistinguishable from that of blizzard’s own. In fact, hotmail picked up on this saying “you are subscribed to this person’s mailing list” or something.
2) The scammers have gone to the care of mocking up a fairly convincing logo for this “expansion”. Only a gamer with a good knowledge of current blizz goings on would a) realise that cataclysm is a misty subject for blizz at the moment and b) that the art is reused from strathlome (I think…)
3) The wording in the email is near perfect. I haven’t spent a long time reading it but it seems absolutely unforced and similar to Blizzard’s expression.
How you can tell it’s a fake:
1) Random people who are not related to Blizzard do not get Alpha invites 😛 So don’t think you’re that lucky!
2) All of the links go to a site that is NOT BLIZZARD OR WOW RELATED. You can see this if you hover over the links. On going to the link, you are prompted to download a .rar file called “Cataclysm Updater”. DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS FILE WHATEVER YOU DO, AND CERTAINLY DO NOT, NEVER, EVER EVER EVER BY JOVE, EXECUTE IT OR UNPACK IT. It is certainly a malignant piece of software, either a virus or a keylogger or something equally nasty.
3) The “Alpha” email links are in fact old beta email links.
4) There is no information concerning cataclysm, especially the content which this email alludes to (hero classes, maelstrom continent, etc).
So PLEASE PLEASE everyone keep an eye out! If you get this email please DO NOT DO ANYTHING BUT DELETE IT. Alert Blizzard if you fear the safety of your account at all, they are lovely people and will be happy to help I’m sure (especially if you phone them up -great support there).
Hope this helped you out,
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