Everything has shifted online, and fraud has moved along with it. Whether you run a business, make websites, sell products or just use email, someone is always ready to trap innocent people. Over the last year and a half I received three fake legal notices.
Two were copyright threats in July 2025, claiming to be from Junglee Music and Moser Baer. The third was a fake Income Tax Department penalty notice in October 2026. The companies and departments were different, but the trick was the same: frighten the reader with a legal threat and push them to download a file before they stop to think. I am sharing all three, with screenshots and the red flags I used to catch them, so you can recognise the pattern too.
I am a website creator. I built my website adaptivelifeguide.com to help people with mobility challenges and disabilities. Until April 30, 2025, I ran Facebook ads to promote it. After that, I stopped running ads completely, as I was focusing on writing good articles instead of paid promotion.
However, something strange happened on 1st July 2025.
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Also Read: Why Security Updates Are Critical for Your Smartphone in 2026 ?
Phishing attack real life examples: three fake notices I received
1. The fraud phishing email I received
On that day, I got an email from [email protected] to my email id [email protected]. The subject line said — “Unauthorized Use of Intellectual Property in Ads.” The email claimed to be from Junglee Music Company and mentioned that I had used their copyrighted music in my ads without permission. They asked me to download a file to check the notice and warned that I had to reply within a week or legal action would be taken.
At first glance, it looked genuine. The office address was correct, and the language was formal. But as an aware internet user, I checked a few things:
- The email was sent from Gmail, not from an official domain like @junglee.com. Big companies never use free email services to send legal notices.
- The email mentioned I had run ads on Google Ads, but I do not have any Google Ads account.
- The attachment was not a PDF, even though the file name showed it as a PDF notice.
This raised my suspicion, but I wanted to see what exactly it was. I downloaded the file. To my surprise, instead of a .pdf file, it was a .exe setup file. This clearly indicated that it was not a notice but a software program.
One more red flag I noticed later
After looking more carefully at the Junglee Music email, I spotted something unusual in the header. It contained the phrase “Ngày gửi: July 1, 2025” — which is not English or Hindi. “Ngày gửi” is Vietnamese, and it directly translates to “Date sent.”
Why would a legal notice from an Indian music company based in Mumbai contain Vietnamese system text? This strongly suggests that the phishing tool — or the person operating it — is based out of Vietnam, not India. The scammer simply used a Vietnamese bulk-mailing tool and forgot to change the template language before blasting it to thousands of websites.
I ran the file to check
Out of curiosity and to test how it works, I ran the file. It installed immediately, but nothing visible happened. There was no window, no interface, no installation success message.
I knew something was wrong. I opened Task Manager to check the running processes. There I saw a process running with the same icon as the downloaded file, and its name was “pdfreader.”
This name sounds safe — like a normal PDF reader program. But think carefully — why would an official notice come as a setup file disguised as a PDF reader?
What was its intention?
Most likely, this program was designed to:
- Scan all PDF files on my computer — such as bank statements, credit card bills, insurance documents, ID proofs, and property papers.
- Steal sensitive data silently without the user knowing anything.
- Send stolen data to the fraudster, who can misuse it for identity theft, financial fraud, or blackmail.
Since I do have antivirus installed, it could not scan the file immediately. However, as a precaution, I uninstalled the program quickly. I also deleted the downloaded file and emptied the Recycle Bin.
Also Read : I Got a Phishing Email Pretending to Be My Hosting Provider — Here’s How I Spotted It (And How You Can Too)
2. Another similar fraud email
Just a few days later, on 10th July 2025, I received a similar email claiming to be from Moser Baer company stating copyright violation in ads. But I knew that Moser Baer closed down in 2018. A company that shut down seven years ago cannot possibly be monitoring modern Google Ads accounts in 2025. Also, this email was sent from a Gmail address ([email protected]) — and to make it worse, the email body still had unfilled template placeholders: {{date}} and {{name}} were literally visible in the text. The scammers had forgotten to fill in their own mass-mailing script before sending it.
These repeated attempts showed that fraudsters are targeting website owners, businesses, and digital creators with fake legal threats to scare them into installing their malware.
3. Third fraud email: a fake Income Tax Department notice
On 27th October 2026, at 3:47 AM, another email arrived, this time at [email protected], the public contact address of TechMitra, and not my personal inbox. Its subject line read “कर अनुपालन की कमी और दंड सूचना / Tax Compliance Deficiency and Penalty Notice”, and the sender name showed as “CPC Bengaluru”. It was written like an official Office Memorandum from the Income Tax Department’s Enforcement Division.
It claimed that an inspection of “your company” had found irregularities under Section 271(1)(c) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, demanded documents within 72 hours, and warned of legal action under Section 276C if I failed to comply. In the middle sat a bold blue “Download Documents” button, and at the bottom was a signature from an “Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax”.
The mail system had already moved it to Spam, but it is still worth studying because it looks far more convincing than the earlier two. The text is bilingual in Hindi and English, it has a reference number, a Delhi address and a government-style layout, and it ends with a line saying a copy has gone to the Director (Systems), CBDT. Someone who is already worried about taxes could easily panic and click.
Here is what gave it away. The sender’s address was a random string on a free Outlook account, not a government domain, even though the display name said CPC Bengaluru. A genuine income tax notice always carries the taxpayer’s name and the financial year (assessment year) it relates to, and it states exactly which issue or return is being questioned. This one had none of that. It spoke of “your company”, was addressed to “all concerned taxpayers”, and named no person, no year and no specific problem, which tells you one template was sent to thousands of addresses.
In my case it also landed on a business contact address that anyone can find on my website, which is exactly how these scammers pick their targets. The logo at the top had failed to load and showed as a broken image. The notice also mixes things that don’t belong together: the sender claims to be CPC Bengaluru, but the letter is supposedly from an Enforcement Division in New Delhi, and an “Office Memorandum” is a format for internal government communication, not for notices to taxpayers.
The biggest red flag was the instruction itself. Genuine income tax communication reaches you through your registered account on the official e-filing portal, where you log in and respond there. It does not ask you to click a button inside an email and download a bundle of “documents”. A 72-hour deadline combined with a threat of prosecution is classic pressure tactics, designed to make you act before you think. I did not click the button. Given my earlier experience with the fake PDF that turned out to be an .exe file, I am fairly sure the download would have been malware or a credential-stealing page.
Are these phishing email scams still active in 2026?
Yes, and they have gotten more convincing.
The pattern behind the Junglee Music email (July 1, 2025) and the Moser Baer email (July 10, 2025) is still circulating in 2026, and it has now moved beyond copyright claims. The fake Income Tax Department notice that reached my contact address on 27th October 2026 uses the same trick with a different disguise. In the time between these emails, I have seen these scams evolve in four clear ways:
1. More polished legal language. The Junglee Music email included a real, verifiable address — The Times of India Building, Dr. D.N. Road, Mumbai — to appear legitimate. Fraudsters now research actual company addresses and copy legal phrasing to make the threat feel credible.
2. They specifically target active advertisers. If you are running or have recently run Facebook Ads or Google Ads, you are a high-value target. Scammers use automated bots to scrape Meta’s public Ad Library, find active advertisers, then harvest the contact email from the business website. Because you care about your ad account health, you are more likely to panic at a copyright threat.
3. They use defunct company names on purpose. Moser Baer shut down in 2018 — yet scammers used their name in 2025. They deliberately choose dissolved companies because victims may still recognise the brand, but there is no active corporate team to expose the fraud publicly.
4. They are moving from copyright claims to government impersonation. The October 2026 notice did not accuse me of using someone’s music. It posed as the Income Tax Department, with a Hindi and English layout, a reference number, a signing officer and a threat of prosecution. A copyright claim can make you doubt yourself, but a tax notice scares almost everyone, whether or not they run a website. It also shows that scammers are not only after advertisers. This email reached a public contact address, so any business with an email visible on its website can be targeted.
If anything, the threat is growing. Cybercrime targeting small website owners and digital creators in India increased significantly through 2024 and 2025. These fake legal-threat scams are part of a wider, coordinated international operation — not isolated random attempts.
Scammers don’t just target professional webmasters through email. If you use mobile apps on your phone, see our alert on the new Food Delivery App OTP Takeover Scam affecting daily buyers.
7 Warning Signs Of Phishing Email
The next time you receive a frightening legal threat over email, check these seven signs before doing anything else:
| # | Red flag | Real example from my emails |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sent from Gmail, Outlook or another free email | [email protected] claiming to be Junglee Music, [email protected] claiming to be CPC Bengaluru (Income Tax Department) |
| 2 | Attachment is .exe, not .pdf | File installed silently as “pdfreader” malware |
| 3 | Claims you used a platform you never used | Both emails accused me of “Google Ads” — I had none |
| 4 | Company is closed or doesn’t exist | Moser Baer shut down in 2018 |
| 5 | Template placeholders left unfilled | {{date}} and {{name}} literally visible in the Moser Baer email |
| 6 | Extreme urgency with legal threats | “Seven (7) business days or we pursue legal remedies” |
| 7 | No specific details identified | Neither copyright email named a single song, video or ad, and the tax notice had no name or financial year | |
If even one of these signs is present — do not download anything. Close the email and verify directly using contact details from the company’s official website, not from the email itself.
Lessons learned: how to identify a phishing email fraud threat and stay safe
These three emails taught me a few things I now follow every time a “legal notice” lands in my inbox.
1. Check the sender’s email address first
Official notices come from the organisation’s own domain, never from Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook. The Junglee Music and Moser Baer emails came from Gmail, and the fake income tax notice came from a random-looking Outlook address even though the display name said “CPC Bengaluru”. The name next to the address can be set to anything, so always look at the actual address, not just the name.
2. Never download or install a file from a threatening email
A legal notice does not need you to install anything. If an attachment claims to be a PDF but is really an .exe setup file, as it was in my first case, it is malware. The same goes for a “Download Documents” button in an email, like the one in the tax notice: don’t click it.
3. Don’t test a suspicious file out of curiosity
I ran that file to see what it would do, and I was lucky that I knew how to check Task Manager and remove it quickly. It is not a risk I would recommend. If you are curious, stop at checking the file extension and the sender. Running the file is the one step you cannot undo.
4. Verify through the official website or portal, not through the email
Look up the company’s contact details yourself and call or write to them. For anything that claims to come from the Income Tax Department, log in to the official e-filing portal on your own and check your pending actions there. A real notice will also be visible in your account, and a fake one will not.
5. Look for details that a real notice would always carry
A genuine tax notice shows your name and the financial year it relates to, and names the exact issue. The fake one spoke of “your company” and “all concerned taxpayers”. The copyright emails never named a single song or ad. When a serious legal threat is this vague, it is a template sent to thousands of people.
6. Understand their psychology
Fraudsters rely on fear and a deadline. Phrases like legal action, unauthorized use, penalty and a 72-hour limit are meant to rush you into acting before you think. When an email pushes urgency and punishment together, slow down and analyse it calmly.
7. Keep your protection up to date, but don’t rely on it alone
A good antivirus helps, but scammers keep changing their files so that new malware can slip past signature-based scanners for the first few days of a campaign. Keeping your system and phone updated is part of the same habit; I explained why in our guide on why security updates are critical for your smartphone and in the deep-dive on why smartphone hardware security matters more than specs.
8. If you did install something, act immediately
Uninstall the program, delete the file from Downloads, Program Files and Temp folders, and empty the Recycle Bin. Then run a full antivirus scan, change your important passwords and watch your bank accounts for unauthorised transactions.
9. Stop publishing your email as plain text
Bots scrape plain-text emails from contact pages. The fake tax notice reached my [email protected] address, which is public on my website, and that is almost certainly how it was found. Replace your public email with a contact form protected by a verification gateway like Cloudflare Turnstile to make harvesting harder.
Why are such frauds increasing?
In today’s digital world, where payments, business operations, and communications have moved online, cybercriminals are targeting everyone — website owners, freelancers, students, small business owners, and digital marketers.
Fraud is no longer limited to OTP scams or fake phone calls. It has entered professional spaces, making it hard to differentiate between genuine communication and fraud.
Final words
This is my personal experience, and I am sharing it so that you do not become a victim of such fraud. If I had blindly trusted the email and entered my passwords or kept that malware installed for long, it could have scanned my entire data and caused huge financial or personal loss.
In the end, remember —
In the digital world, trust only what you can verify.
Stay alert. Never act in haste when any email threatens you with legal action or account suspension. Analyze the details, consult experts, and keep your devices protected with strong antivirus and awareness.
If you found this article useful, share it with your friends and family. Let’s create a safer digital world together by spreading awareness against fraud.
Frequently asked questions
Is a copyright infringement email from Gmail real?
No. Legitimate legal notices from companies always come from official corporate email domains — never from free services like Gmail or Yahoo. If you receive a copyright claim from a Gmail address, it is almost certainly a scam.
What should I do if I accidentally downloaded a suspicious .exe file?
Open Task Manager immediately and end any unfamiliar processes. Uninstall the program from Control Panel, delete the downloaded file, empty the Recycle Bin, and run a full antivirus scan. Change your important passwords as a precaution.
Why does the fake email use real company names like Junglee Music?
Scammers use recognisable brand names to add false credibility and trigger panic. Junglee Music is a real division of Times Group — but the email came from a random Gmail account, not from @timesgroup.com.
Can antivirus software catch this type of malware?
Not always immediately. Scammers continuously modify their files to achieve what is called “Zero-Day” status — meaning the file slips past signature-based antivirus scanners for the first few days of a campaign. Always be cautious regardless of whether your antivirus flags a file.
How did scammers get my email address?
If you ran Facebook or Google Ads, your business is visible in public ad libraries. Automated bots scrape these libraries for active advertisers, then crawl the advertiser’s website to harvest public contact emails like [email protected].
Ayush Singhal is the founder and chief editor of TechMitra.in — a tech hub dedicated to simplifying gadgets, AI tools, and smart innovations for everyday users. With over 15 years of business experience, a Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) degree, and 5 years of hands-on experience running an electronics retail shop, Ayush brings real-world gadget knowledge and a genuine passion for emerging technology.
At TechMitra, he covers everything from AI breakthroughs and gadget reviews to app guides, mobile tips, and digital how-tos. His goal is simple — to make tech easy, useful, and enjoyable for everyone. When he’s not testing the latest devices or exploring AI trends, Ayush spends his time crafting tutorials that help readers make smarter digital choices.
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