At first glance, an email that appears to be from Max Restaurant Group seems like a great surprise.
The email thanks the recipient for being a customer and offers a $75 gift credit. It says the user needs to register and review account settings and they're good to go.
But if they clicked and put in their personal information, the real Max Restaurant Group said that person fell for a phishing scam.
"It should be suspicious for anybody who sees it because it's a free offer for $75 gift card if you put in your credit card information," Max Restaurant Group Vice President Scott Smith said
Smith said he received the same email and soon after, some guests began letting the company know they'd received it too. The company sent out a warning to let customers know that the email was fraudulent.
"I still don't think that that many got sent out, but we're certainly concerned and we're treating it very seriously," Smith said.
Smith said they're investigating the breach and believe it happened through the email service Outlook.
Local
"There's a lot of other things, contacts in Microsoft Outlook and things like that, that we're looking at right now as possible vulnerabilities," Smith said.
Smith said the email was unlike promotions they've run before and that some of the wording in the email was unusual. It used "USD" after "75" and called restaurants "branches." The company always refers to its locations as "restaurants."
Those NBC Connecticut spoke to on Monday who have visited Max Restaurants said the scam is not surprising to hear.
"You never respond to those emails. You call up the company, you get the number, you ask, 'Did you send an email? Did you inquire about information?' You never respond to an email because it's usually a scam," Stephen Vaughan from Middletown said.
"Whenever I see anything like that, I just delete it," said Kashif Qasim from Prospect.
Max Restaurant Group said they do not believe all emails on their list were involved in the scam. They emphasize that aside from emails, no personal data was accessed. Smith said they do not store credit card information in any of their systems.
