Just received an email asking to sign up for news updates. Legit?

[Alex_M]

I received the email attached prompting me to click on a link to subscribe for more news from Serif. Is this legit? I'm fine with subscribing for more news BUT I'm super wary of clicking on links in emails, especially when I don't find anything about the email's contents on the website or forum of the sender. Soo... safe to click or not?

[Bri-Toon]

Yes, it is legit. Scams can mimic subjects or bodies but not commonly the actual email address. The sender in that screenshot says, "Affinity@Serif.com." That is the official email. If it said something like "Affinity@accounts.com," then I would be concerned seeing how "Serif" is the parent of all Affinity products, and accounts.com is not related to Affinity. So as long it says "@(official company)", you should be safe. That button is just a common way to check for people's interest.

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, Bri-Toon said:

Yes, it is legit. Scams can mimic subjects or bodies but not commonly the actual email address. 

Sorry, but that's incorrect. Faking that "From" address is fairly trivial. And although there are some improvements in email security being implemented by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs), they are not yet implemented by all ISPs and are not yet perfect.

 

If you examine the full set of email headers that are usually hidden by your email client you can sometimes be sure the message is fake, and you can sometimes be certain it's legitimate, but you can't always be sure it's legitimate.

 

I have gotten several emails like that one, and examined the headers, but cannot say for sure if they're legitimate or not. If legitimate, Serif has contracted with someone to send them, rather than sending them directly from the Serif servers. That makes it impossible for the recipients to be sure they're legitimate, and only someone from Serif can say for sure, in my opinion.

[Alex_M]

As Walt said, having the proper domain name in the email doesn't prove the email is legit. I've received such emails before that were scams so I'm not clicking until I hear from someone at Serif.

[stokerg]

7 hours ago, Alex_M said:

safe to click or not?

 

Hi Alex_M,

 

The email is safe.  Some changes have been introduced to how companies can contact people via email.  We have had to email everyone asking them to opt in or out of getting the email newsletters

[Alex_M]

Got it.

[toltec]

5 hours ago, stokerg said:

 

Hi Alex_M,

 

The email is safe.  Some changes have been introduced to how companies can contact people via email.  We have had to email everyone asking them to opt in or out of getting the email newsletters

 

As someone who never got an opt in e-mail giving me the option to opt in opt out. I seem to be out of options 

[Bri-Toon]

I'm glad to see that the email is safe, but I am really sorry to give the wrong information, especially to something that can be as critical as this.

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, stokerg said:

Some changes have been introduced to how companies can contact people via email.  We have had to email everyone asking them to opt in or out of getting the email newsletters

I have not received any email like this & I do want to continue getting the newsletters. Is there something I need to do for that, or is this maybe something that does not apply to me because I live in the U.S.?

[toltec]

6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I have not received any email like this & I do want to continue getting the newsletters. Is there something I need to do for that, or is this maybe something that does not apply to me because I live in the U.S.?

 

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/signup/

[R C-R]

The "/en-gb/" in that URL suggests to me it is Great Britain users....

[firstdefence]

I wonder if employing PGP for emails would be a good thing here, thoughts?

[toltec]

47 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The "/en-gb/" in that URL suggests to me it is Great Britain users....

 

Who would have thought ?  

 

Clever people at Serif !

 

[Alfred]

45 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The "/en-gb/" in that URL suggests to me it is Great Britain users....

 

If it’s anything like other such links, omitting the ‘/en-gb’ will result in your locale being auto-detected.

[walt.farrell]

44 minutes ago, Alfred said:

If it’s anything like other such links, omitting the ‘/en-gb’ will result in your locale being auto-detected.

And, in fact, it does work that way   (or those in the US can just change the en-gb to en-us).

[R C-R]

56 minutes ago, toltec said:

Clever people at Serif !

It would have been clever except that the page did not load completely, & in Safari the change county link is at the bottom, which was part of what did not load. 

 

I eventually got to the US page by omitting the country-specific part of the URL (which took two tries for some reason), but what I really what to know is why I never got the email. (Yes, I checked the spam folder for that.) I was getting emails from Affinity through the first part of March so I am fairly sure it wasn't something wrong with my email address.

[walt.farrell]

It is likely that recently enacted regulations in Europe required Serif to contact their European customers and have them opt-in to receiving email communications.

[toltec]

14 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It would have been clever except that the page did not load completely, & in Safari the change county link is at the bottom, which was part of what did not load. 

 

Good grief.

 

It works in Opera, Firefox and even, Microsoft Edge. I just tried.

 

So I would suggest that Safari is the problem ?

 

 

[Alfred]

29 minutes ago, R C-R said:

in Safari the change county link is at the bottom

 

There's a link next to the T&C link at the bottom of the page, but (as shown in @toltec's screenshot) there's also a Country dropdown list within the signup form itself.

 

For what it's worth, I haven't yet received an email from Serif about this.

 

[EdD]

Just clicked the link (on Safari) and it worked fine . Also it identified my country (Canada) right away.

[firstdefence]

1 hour ago, toltec said:

 

Good grief.

 

It works in Opera, Firefox and even, Microsoft Edge. I just tried.

 

So I would suggest that Safari is the problem ?

 

 

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish none safarians and the tyranny of alternative browsers  . Blessed is he, who in the name of Safari and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of other browsers, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost Safarians. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy Safari. And you will know my name is the Firstdefence when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, toltec said:

So I would suggest that Safari is the problem ?

I suspect it was a local problem with my computer or internet connection, not a browser issue.

[MtnArch]

11 hours ago, toltec said:

 

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/signup/

 

I never received the email either - thanks, Toltec, for sharing the link!  (hopefully) All signed up now!

 

[toltec]

13 hours ago, Alfred said:

For what it's worth, I haven't yet received an email from Serif about this.

 

I suppose that technically, they might need your permission in order to send you an e-mail to ask you if they could send you e-mails 

Which does sound a bit 

[John Rostron]

7 hours ago, toltec said:

I suppose that technically, they might need your permission in order to send you an e-mail to ask you if they could send you e-mails.

Yes, that is the case, but it applies to the time after the cut-off date. Once you have confirmed, then you should be given an opportunity to re-subscribe or opt out at intervals.

John