FedEx.com Ship Manager Invitation - Phishing or not?

[dbentley]

Hi,
I'm the Team Contact for 1502. We just received the following
email, with no warning about it from FIRST.
The link *appears* to lead to fedex.com.

Is this a "phisher" pretending to be FedEx trying to get some
shipping account data out of us, or is this a legitimate part
of the contest? If legit, why hasn't FIRST warned us about it?

Thanks!
- Deb Bentley

--- message follows ---
> From: "FedEx.com Online Services" <OnlineServices@fedex.com>
> To: [me]
> Date: Monday - January 16, 2006 1:08 PM
> Subject: Access FedEx Ship Manager as a guest of Jana Munoz
>
> Dear Team 1502:
>
> Jana Munoz has invited you to access FedEx Ship Manager
> on fedex.com with the following privileges:
>
> You may process shipments using FedEx Ship Manager with
> an account number administered by Jana Munoz
>
> Please click on this Ship Manager Invitation Link immediately to
> accept your invitation.
>
> Your invitation will expire within 5 days of the time it was
> transmitted. If it has already expired, you may request another
> invitation from Jana Munoz.
>
> fedex.com
>
> Where the business of shipping gets doneSM
> This message has been sent by an auto responder system.
> Please do not reply to this message.

[Sscamatt]

When u click on the link does it bring your to somewhere that is "http://www.fedex.com/*******" or somewhere else?

[Mike Norton]

I think this is how you will be able to ship your robot. I went and did it. It puts you right into FedEx shipping account. You only give your shipping details no account info. they pay not you.

you only have 5 days to do this

[Beth Sweet]

According to the manual:

6.7.7 NEW: The PassKey System
This is an on-line ship manager process that allows registered teams in the contiguous 48 U.S. states to print
their own airbills for one Regional event. Teams registered for the Championship may also print an airbill for
that event. Find the instructions in the FedEx envelope/packet in your Kit of Parts.
• The Shipping Contact should become familiar with the instructions and retain this packet in a safe
place.
• FIRST will send an invitation to the Shipping Contact, via e-mail, to register for the PassKey system.
The Shipping Contact will have five (5) days to register.
• Once the registration is complete, he/she will be able to enter the system, choose the event, fill in a
limited amount of information and print out an airbill.
• She/he should register within 3 days of requested pickup date.
The airbill for the return from the Championship will be in the team’s Championship registration

Aka, this is probably the manager referred to

[Rickertsen2]

Originally Posted by Sscamatt

When u click on the link does it bring your to somewhere that is "http://www.fedex.com/*******" or somewhere else?

Whether or not the domain name *looks* ok should not be relied upon. There are "international" characters that look VERY similar or identical to normal A-Z 1-9 characters. This can be used to accomplish what is called IDN spoofing where are domain that looks identical to the ligitimate one is registered and used for spoofing. Depending on your browser you may or may not susciptable to this sort of attack.

If you really want to know whether a domain is legit, you need to resolve it to an IP address and compare it to the IP of the real one.

Emails can be even more easily spoofed. NEVER rely on where an email appears to come from.

[Mr. Steve]

It explains all of this in the fedex envelope in the kit addressed to "Shipping Contact Manager"

It said invitations would go out the week of 1/16....Today's 1/16

[Madison]

Deb,

To be safe, I'd wait on providing any information until another team contact can provide you with more information -- particularly about whether they've received the same e-mail. You may also want to call FIRST Team Support directly and ask them what's up.

[Mark McLeod]

I found the FedEx email request to be valid.
I confirmed my account by entering another way through the FedEx system.
They asked for address and email to setup my account. No other information not even my name.

[Mr. Freeman]

If you want conformation that this is actually a valid email then I would suggest calling FedEx.
Their customer support phone number can be found here:
http://www.fedex.com/us/about/unitedstates/contact/

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Mr. Freeman

If you want conformation that this is actually a valid email then I would suggest calling FedEx.
Their customer support phone number can be found here:
http://www.fedex.com/us/about/unitedstates/contact/

If you call FedEx, just say 'representative' aloud anywhere within the automated menus and you should be able to speak to a human being (or something resembling one) right away.

[Mike Martus]

Simple process..... I wonder how many team leaders/shipping will not do this step? And..... will the free shipping be denied as a result?

[Katie Reynolds]

The team leaders on 857 were very skeptical about doing this (and we still haven't done it). I think the email would have been better received, had it been an official FIRST email blast.

EDIT: I clicked on the link in the email and got a page saying, "An error has occurred and we are unable to process your request. Please try again." After trying three times, no dice. Anyone else getting this message?

[tckma]

Originally Posted by Katie Reynolds

The team leaders on 857 were very skeptical about doing this (and we still haven't done it). I think the email would have been better received, had it been an official FIRST email blast.

Has anyone contacted FIRST about this e-mail? It seems legit and that most teams have gotten it (I am not the e-mail contact for my team, so I don't know). Perhaps FIRST can say that it's legit in a future e-mail blast?

I'd suggest it, but I don't want to blast FIRST with e-mail if someone's already done so.

[Bob Steele]

This is very confusing because the email I got from FedEx did not have a LINK that I could click on.. I am not sure if it got cut out by our school server or if there was one there at all to begin with.. I called the FedEx help line listed in the passkey instructions and they could not help me...
I have also called FIRST but I have left a message with no return on it yet..

This is a very strange way of doing this this year... I am not sure why things had to change.. it seemed to work fine the other years...

any ideas on this link?

Did we all get the same one? If we did could someone send me the link via personal message to let me try it?

thanks
B

[Bob Steele]

An update: My problems have been solved... FIRST (Debbie Tetrault) got back to me very quickly and I found that the problem was my school's firewall.
She sent the invite to another web email address I have and I am back in business... definitely not phishing... and painless...takes about 2 minutes to enter your data and get registered to use the system.

If your email did not have a link that you could use please just give her a call at FIRST and she will help you out!!

Good luck to all!!

B