"Sorry you cancelled reservation" - but we had none! ??

[ORV]

22 minutes ago, thebsinmiss said:

The give away is the "explore" in the email address.  That identifies it as not coming from oceania (their emails are typically "oceaniacruises.com) 

 

The larger question is how did a scammer or AI spam system apparently get numerous individuals email addresses to target Oceania cruisers specifically as noted by the large number of people who got them.  I have no proof of anything but I'm guessing its related to the cruise critic forum.

 

The wording/timing is pretty shrewd given all the press the one family got when scammers canceled their cruise 3 days prior to sailing (DONT SHOW YOUR INFO IN POSTS!).  Putting the word "cancellation" in the subject line likely causes more people to open the email out of fear of being subject to that well publicized incident

 

As someone else said, just delete them without opening and you are fine.  Generally if it is actually a valid communication the business will send a follow up if they don't get a response.

You are making a lot of assumptions that are unfounded. And pretty much all large businesses have multiple wording in their emails. For example, when I booked an excursion we get it from this email. specialservices@oceaniacruises.com, when I booked onboard I got one from this email, noreply@oceaniacruises.com (most common) and others. 

 

Then again you might be right, but I don't think so. 

[EJL2023]

2 minutes ago, ORV said:

You are making a lot of assumptions that are unfounded. And pretty much all large businesses have multiple wording in their emails. For example, when I booked an excursion we get it from this email. specialservices@oceaniacruises.com, when I booked onboard I got one from this email, noreply@oceaniacruises.com (most common) and others. 

 

Then again you might be right, but I don't think so. 

You may be correct, however in the legitimate examples you provided it was always oceaniacruises.com, but you noted the email address you received was from explore.oceaniacruises.com.  To me that could be an indicator. Honestly, I personally ignore all survery and rate us emails unless perhaps from a local small business that I have done recent business with….

[patty1955]

12 minutes ago, thebsinmiss said:

Based on the posts there are 3 or 4 "subject lines" being used in these fishing attacks. Cancelation/Help/Website etc...  

 

Bottom line is the are all phishing/spam 

Then they're poorly done since they lead to a missing folder page.

[See_More]

6 hours ago, thebsinmiss said:

Based on the posts there are 3 or 4 "subject lines" being used in these fishing attacks. Cancelation/Help/Website etc...  

 

Bottom line is the are all phishing/spam 

I agree.  Definitely phishing/spam. I received the one asking for the 3 question survey. Who would send out a survey with only 3 questions and here is what comes up when you hit the reply 

 

[avw]

I just got two of the emails tonight. One said that I recently canceled a cruise and the other referred to the reservation process. I didn't click on either link. The cancellation message caused me some concern because I am leaving next week for 3 weeks on Oceania, plus I just made a final payment yesterday for a future cruise. Checking my account on the Oceania website, everything appears to be in order. I'll call Oceania in the morning to confirm. I'll tell them that there are others who reported receiving the same emails on Cruise Critic   

[clo]

I got one. Deleted and blocked future ones although that doesn't seem to always be effective. I had earlier today reported this thread and suggested that they place it somewhere where more can see it. Thanks all.

[Tsunami74]

I got one and thought it was about our recent Vista cancellation.  I was actually happy to tell them why (mostly not wanting to risk a noisy cabin).

Only having 2 questions, I thought I could actually tell them rather than checking boxes. So (unusual for me) I clicked on it and got the 404 error. 😟 

[avw]

11 hours ago, avw said:

I just got two of the emails tonight. One said that I recently canceled a cruise and the other referred to the reservation process. I didn't click on either link. The cancellation message caused me some concern because I am leaving next week for 3 weeks on Oceania, plus I just made a final payment yesterday for a future cruise. Checking my account on the Oceania website, everything appears to be in order. I'll call Oceania in the morning to confirm. I'll tell them that there are others who reported receiving the same emails on Cruise Critic   

I just spoke to Oceania who confirmed that my 3 upcoming cruises are all safely booked. Nothing has been cancelled. I told the agent that several other Oceania customers reported on Cruise Critic that they, too, received these emails. She asked me to forward the two emails I received to her, which I did as we were on the phone. She said that she hadn't heard about this before and would send the information on to her superiors. It was nice to talk with someone who was willing to take that extra step.  

[ratflinger]

On 5/23/2024 at 4:51 PM, pinotlover said:

Milt request to do a survey looked suspicious. I deleted immediately and never opened.

This is the correct action.  If you didn't cancel a booking, or even have one then why in the world would you open the obviously scam email?  I realize that spam can look really legit now, but still.

[patty1955]

13 minutes ago, ratflinger said:

This is the correct action.  If you didn't cancel a booking, or even have one then why in the world would you open the obviously scam email?  I realize that spam can look really legit now, but still.

As I said, mine was regarding reservations. I had booked excursions a few days before I got the email. 

[bradpole]

On 5/23/2024 at 5:28 PM, thebsinmiss said:

The address doesn't look quite right but don't know why. Obviously I got one regarding our upcoming cruise and doing a quick survey on their service. I don't think this is legit and simply a glitch with Oceania's system. 

 

Either cruise critic or oceania web site appears to have been hacked as someone has gained access to email addresses in order to target all the individuals posting here.

 

Might be interesting to see if other cruise line patrons have received similar emails today. If thats the case with Carnival etc (non-NCL related lines) then it is likely cruise critic is being used to source the targeting info. If its just NCL and or Oceania patrons then I would bet thats where the email info breach is coming from.

 

 

My email address that received the questionable survey is only on record at Oceania.  My cruise critic account uses a completely different account.  

[thebsinmiss]

interesting....wonder if Oceania will do a security review and/or issue a warning. (doubt it !)

 

 

[bradpole]

11 minutes ago, thebsinmiss said:

interesting....wonder if Oceania will do a security review and/or issue a warning. (doubt it !)

 

 

I doubt it as well.  

[durberville]

I was feeling left out but received one of those emails this morning about the “reservation process”. Deleted it. 

[1985rz1]

On 5/24/2024 at 10:29 AM, ORV said:

You are making a lot of assumptions that are unfounded. And pretty much all large businesses have multiple wording in their emails. For example, when I booked an excursion we get it from this email. specialservices@oceaniacruises.com, when I booked onboard I got one from this email, noreply@oceaniacruises.com (most common) and others. 

 

Then again you might be right, but I don't think so. 

I think the multiple wording refers to the part of the email address after the @ sign.  Any additional word the precedes the website name is usually a different entity.  The part before the @ sign refers to a mailbox at the entity's site.

Edited May 25 by 1985rz1

[clo]

40 minutes ago, 1985rz1 said:

additional word the precedes the website name is usually a different entity.

Did you mean "precedes"?

[Zukini]

42 minutes ago, 1985rz1 said:

I think the multiple wording refers to the part of the email address after the @ sign.  Any additional word the precedes the website name is usually a different entity.  The part before the @ sign refers to a mailbox at the entity's site.

I'm an IT guy for a large corporation.  Multiple wording after the @ is fine, as long as it ENDS with the correct domain name (in this case, oceaniacruises.com).  Companies do this all the time, the first part is directing mail to a particular server or service that they host (for example, explore.acme.com could be directing to their shore excursions server, mail.acme.com could be directing to a mailserver).

 

A bigger concern is when the sender address APPEARS to be oceaniacruises.com, but the reply-to is something different.  A very common scam would be to make an easily unnoticed mispelling (for example replace the "i" in oceania with a lower case "L" so that OCEANIACRUISES would become OCEANlACRUISES) or to insert some punctuation (like oceania-cruises).

Rule of thumb:  Treat everything like it's malicious unless proven otherwise. Distrust links and go directly to your account yourself (not just for Oceania, but for everything).

Edited May 25 by Zukini

[1985rz1]

12 minutes ago, clo said:

Did you mean "precedes"?

Yes, as in a term that appears at the beginning of a string of terms.  But @Zukini corrected my belief that it would change the domain.

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precede#:~:text=1,ahead or in front of

[1985rz1]

18 minutes ago, Zukini said:

Rule of thumb:  Treat everything like it's malicious unless proven otherwise. Distrust links and go directly to your account yourself (not just for Oceania, but for everything).

Yep.

 

PS Thanks for the correction on the domain name.  

[lilybug]

We also received the thank you for booking email with 3 question survey and error message.  I tried to purchase Bev. pkg. and the old upgrade went into my cart and I can't remove it.  Every time I hit "remove", screen turns gray and nothing happens.  I've called them and also asked our TA to help but nothing has happened.  I want to prepay gratuities, purchase package and a couple of excursions but I can't get that old pricing (over $1200) out of the cart.  Very frustrating.  I know I can do this onboard, but I wanted to have it paid for beforehand.

[thebsinmiss]

You will find many posts stating that O does maintenance on their computer system on weekends and it can be very "glitchy" during this time.   Wait until Monday and check to see if the cart is updated then. If not give it another try on line and if that fails call O directly.

 

I'm surprised your TA wasn't able to help you more.

 

[lilybug]

I have been trying to ge them out of the cart for well over a week - every day, several times a day.  I can't proceed with shore excursions because they will charge my credit card for over $1200 for the drink pkg.  Excursions are from Simply More.  When I called O, he said my travel agent has to do it, she said she will take care of it.  I have a feeling she may be having the same difficulties I am.  Their technology is so frustrating that this may be our last cruise with them.  I understand people are still cruising under the old beverage pkg., but is it too much to expect that they would also provide a separate Simply More option?  This is nothing to do with maintenance.  

[EJL2023]

13 minutes ago, lilybug said:

I have been trying to ge them out of the cart for well over a week - every day, several times a day.  I can't proceed with shore excursions because they will charge my credit card for over $1200 for the drink pkg.  Excursions are from Simply More.  When I called O, he said my travel agent has to do it, she said she will take care of it.  I have a feeling she may be having the same difficulties I am.  Their technology is so frustrating that this may be our last cruise with them.  I understand people are still cruising under the old beverage pkg., but is it too much to expect that they would also provide a separate Simply More option?  This is nothing to do with maintenance.  

I guess what I find odd is the O rep said you need to call your TA.  We have a TA and every time we have booked excursions they were always handled by us making a direct call to O. It was always handled extremely efficient.  I understand your frustration with the system issues but I would never have it be a decision maker as honestly, you really could do a cruise without pretty much ever dealing with the system on a personal basis. Either O or your TA could handle as they are earning a commission. 

Edited May 26 by EJL2023

[patty1955]

3 minutes ago, EJL2023 said:

I guess what I find odd is the O rep said you need to call your TA.  We have a TA and every time we have booked excursions they were always handled by us making a direct call to O. It was always handled extremely efficient.  

The last time I called about an excursion, they passed the call to my "Travel Advisor" (their rep).

[EJL2023]

16 minutes ago, patty1955 said:

The last time I called about an excursion, they passed the call to my "Travel Advisor" (their rep).

Their rep? So they transferred internally to another Oceania person?