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Error Or Should I Be Concerned?

I just saw this e-mail in my inbox from [email protected]

Quote:

We have finished processing your passport, and it has been printed.

Your passport application locator number is [Removed For Safety].

You paid for overnight delivery. This means you should receive your passport on or about 05/31/2014.

If you have any additional questions, you may contact the National Passport Information Center via e-mail at http://travel.state.gov/passport/npic/npic_898.html. Please include the above locator number. It will enable them to update you on the status of your application. For more information about the National Passport Information Center, please visit us at http://travel.state.gov/passport/npic/npic_898.html.

I did not order a passport, so I'm hoping this is just an error (sent to the wrong e-mail). I will e-mail the State Department about this, but I was just wondering if anyone else has gotten an e-mail like this before. I checked my credit card statement and there were no charges that I didn't authorize, so I'm guessing this is just an error. Anyone ever gotten something like this before? I just saw this e-mail and it freaked me out pretty good. Thanks.

I wouldn't like this.

I hope everything is OK, but it sounds like a records snafu. Hope it doesn't come back to bite you.

Error Or Should I Be Concerned?

Doesn't look real, especially because it's a year old - date is 2014.

Ignore it. If you did not apply for a passport, what do you are?

If you email State, don't do it by replying to that message. Looks like you may have been phished.

I didn't reply to that e-mail, just forwarded the message to their actual e-mail address. We'll see what they say.

I didn't even notice the 2014 LOL.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxBuck (Post 24902685)

If you email State, don't do it by replying to that message. Looks like you may have been phished.

A phish is looking for some secret information--where's the attempt to get anything secret from that? The URLs don't point to pages that need logins.

I got a similar email, but I'm 95% certain State's system just glitched.

My email had a delivery date in 2014, and regular delivery -- which happened to be when I last renewed my passport.

I got my most recent passport last year, and the delivery date on my email was about the time that it came in the mail last year. Both the application locator number and the USPS tracking number in my email are the same as my current passport's.

If you're not a hoarder like me and don't keep every envelope and email you receive, here's a hint: the application locator number is in your passport's MRZ.

The second row of characters (the one at the very bottom of your data page) contains:
[passportno.][checkdigit]USA[birthdate][checkdigit][sex][expirydate][checkdigit][application locator no.], plus a few more check digits at the end.

Check your most recent passport if you want to be safe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel (Post 24904549)

A phish is looking for some secret information--where's the attempt to get anything secret from that? The URLs don't point to pages that need logins.

I'm not clear on whether, when one copies text to this message board site that includes hyperlinks from one's emails, the hyperlink transfers verbatim or whether the hyperlink is regenerated.

Most of us have received phishing emails in which the hyperlinks do not direct one to the apparent address, but instead to a second, spoof, site where the phishing occurs. My point is not to either respond directly to an odd email nor click on any embodied links. I suppose I'm being Captain Obvious here.