The email contains a picture of the .Mac "world" logo and is very much in Apple's style. I was so convinced it might be genuine that I went off to check my Apple store account (by opening a browser and navigating there myself, not by clicking any links, of course) to check my details, since I had recently changed my bank.

When all seemed to be OK with my account, I went back to the email and hovered over the clickable "by clicking here" link and the alt text came up showing that it was actually NOT going direct to the Apple web site. he web site came up as (and PLEASE don't click this link -- it's here for your information only to help you identify the fake email) http://www.moosej.com/https/.www.apple.com/us .

I've since navigated to the moosej web site (just a basic page of someone practicing web coding) and the full URL, which comes up with a "404 not found message," but perhaps it's been pulled down, or is maybe just harvesting "live" emails for spam by tracking the click-throughs. In any event, I would recommend that you DON'T click the link.

I've copied in a screen grab here so you can see how convincing looking the email actually was (although closer inspection of the style of the language might also give a more alert reader a clue that it's not real).

Anyway, that's it. If you have other .Mac using friends, please let them know. I'm concerned that because of the timing of this (i.e. the switch-over to MobileMe) people will think it's real, and could be preventing their transition to the new system, and will click the link.

I couldn't find an email address at apple to report this (such as abuse@) so if anyone knows of an address to send it to, please let me know so I can forward it on with full headers for tracking.

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