Q: new mail account "Senior Discount Box" showed up, can't delete

A "profile" means some other organization has some IT policy in effect that governs the iPhone.  In other words, your friend must not own the iPhone outright ... it probably belongs to some organization or school that has an IT department that governs it.  You should contact them about this email account.

Look for the Profile in Settings > General > Profiles & Device Management

You should be able to remove the profile which removes the email account. Lots of adware and malware is doing this now.

sberman wrote:

 

A "profile" means some other organization has some IT policy in effect that governs the iPhone.  In other words, your friend must not own the iPhone outright ... it probably belongs to some organization or school that has an IT department that governs it.  You should contact them about this email account.

A point of clarification. Just because there is a profile on the phone doesn't mean the person doesn't own it. I have a profile on my phone which I own outright because I needed it to install an app from my employer to view my schedule. Some companies allow people to put corporate email on personal phones but require a profile. I've also seen people who've used SIMS from certain companies that sell them for international travel with profiles installed on the phone. I only discovered that because the people couldn't access cellular data when they got back until the profile was removed.

Yes, allowing a profile on your phone means you're ceding some level of control but it doesn't mean much of anything about ownership of the device.

thaw3 wrote:

 

Thanks for the clarification. In this instance, some entity from a website or an email installed the profile without my girlfriend's permissio. How this can happen I don't quite understand.

I've been seeing that happen slighty more often. It's always been a way to get apps installed without the usual iTunes Store security.  I'm guessing someone clicked on a link about installing an app or something similar and then clicked "ok"  on the request to install a profile. We've all gotten so used to just clicking through things like that that we don't always read them.

Delete the profile. Be careful, in future, when clicking "Ok" that you pay attention.

Best of luck.

I just tapped a banner ad in Flixster that offered discount coupons for Seniors. Tapping the banner ad takes you to the profile install for this.

I also had this show up. I was checking my email accounts and noticed an inbox for Senior Discount. When I went to my mail settings I found that the email account was traced to someone else. sh#$@@@t.!! It's my fault. I probably installed it when I ok'ed a wifi security certificate. This is very nasty. I don't know how much info the hack was able to obtain. I have to change everything now.

I don't believe these profiles are that sinister. It's not generally seen as a hack.

More like adware or malware... an annoyance for sure, but your data is not at risk unless you volunteer it.

Due to how secure iOS has been proven to be, the "bad guys" have to trick the data out of you, as they can't dig for it on your device.

I've seen some that do not nothing but hijack all your Google searches and send them to other search engines. Or direct your searches at abc.com to xyz.com instead.

LACAllen wrote:

 

I don't believe these profiles are that sinister. It's not generally seen as a hack.

Profiles can do things like access your contacts and calendar, enforce a passcode, prevent the use of the camera and all sorts of other things. Some people might find that very sinister. While it may not be the equivalent of giving someone the keys to your safe deposit box, you've certainly let them in the front door and let them wander around the house unattended. 

Thanks, I  had this happen this morning, just went to profile and deleted.

Jane

Thanks everyone!  Same thing happened to me w/senior ...I had no idea!