Lexapro For Sale Online

The Internet is full of scams and spams about Viagra and herbal equivalents, but recently there have been a lot of emails and web sites trying to sell Lexapro.

This is an anti-depressant  and is widely prescribed.

The scammers and spammers appear to want to convince people that it’s like taking smarties – just buy as much as you want without prescription and take them anytime.

But, Lexapro is a powerful pharmaceutical and must only be taken on the direction of a doctor.

It is dangerous to use any such drug as if it were entirely benign – only a doctor can tell you if this is the right drug for your circumstances.

Common side-effects include:-

  • Constipation
  • diarrhoea
  • dry mouth
  • gas in the stomach

but there are also less common more serious  side effects.

Do not buy drugs on the Internet – you have no idea what’s in the tablets.

And do not self-medicate – trust your doctor.

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Top 10 Business Scams

The most common business scams are:-

1.      Ransomware

This is where malware gets into your computer and encrypts some of your files. It then gives a message on screen demanding a ransom to be paid; otherwise your files will be left encrypted or deleted.

2.      Phishing / Identity Fraud

This is where you receive messages claiming to be from someone trustworthy or in authority such as your bank or HMRC or the local council or even Marks and Spencer or Tesco etc. The message is to get you to divulge confidential information – whether by return email or by clicking on a link which takes you to what appears to be a valid website but was created by the scammers.

3.      Email Spoofing

Some scammers are able to ‘spoof’ email addresses i.e. make it appear that an email has come from who they say.  This can lead to you trusting the email, so this is dangerous.

4.      Tech Support virus scam

This is a very common scam where the caller claims they are calling from Microsoft or your Internet broadband supplier or IT department and tells you that you have a virus on your computer. The caller goes on to take control of your computer, convince you there is a major problem and charge you for removing that non-existent problem.

5.      Online Purchases – Fake invoices

You select and pay for an item online but it never arrives. Or you receive an invoice for goods delivered but it’s fake and there hasn’t been a delivery.

6.      Online Reputation Damage

The reputation of any organisation is important and some scammers try to make money by damaging or threatening to damage that reputation through fake reviews, social media comments and negative feedback.

7.      Advertising and Directories

These scams involve email or calls about updating your company entry in a business directory or about discount advertising available but only for a short period. Neither is value for money.  

8.     Government Grant

Government grant scam. This scam comes in the form of a phone call, email or letter informing you that your business qualifies for a government grant. In order to receive the grant, you must first send a processing or delivery fee, usually via Western Union or similar wire transfer.

9.      Fake Cheques

The fake cheque scam is either simply that you receive a fake cheque in payment for goods or a fake cheque that is an overpayment. The scammer then calls and asks for the over payment to be refunded. Many people don’t realise that after 5 working days the money from the cheque will be in your account but for two further working days it is possible the bank will withdraw that money if the cheque bounces. If someone overpays by cheque you need to wait 7 working days before issuing a refund.

10.  Unsolicited Goods

A delivery of goods is received and an invoice. All seems in order so the invoice is paid. Them it is realised that the person the goods are supposedly for did not order them. You have paid (probably much over the odds) for items you didn’t order.

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Equifax Scam

Equifax recently suffered a massive data breach where the personal data of up to 44 million British consumers was stolen by hackers.

Scammers have leapt on this bandwagon – sending out huge numbers of scam messages about this.

A typical message claims to be from Equifax and states

“Warning – your confidential data is at risk.

Click here to review your profile and secure your information”

Equifax takes your security to be a matter of great importance.

The link is to a fake website setup to look enough like Equifax and designed to get you to enter your name, address, phone number and more. This is all information that can be sold to other scammers.

This is just a nasty phishing scam

If you want to read the blog about the data breach go to https://fightback.ninja/equifax-data-breach/

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Legal Steps to Recover Your Stolen Money

This is a series of steps for attempting to recover money stolen by fraudsters. It has been created by Barrister  Gideon Roseman following his skirmish with fraudsters. You can read about that at fightback.ninja/amateur-detective-recovers-stolen-money/

  1. Immediately phone your bank and ask to speak with the fraud team

Explain what has happened and demand they immediately contact the fraudster’s bank, i.e.  the bank you transferred your money to.

  1. Immediately contact a solicitor or barrister who can accept instructions directly from members of the public (or alternatively you can attempt to do this yourself). Ask them to immediately make an application to freeze the fraudster’s bank account and any other bank account that the fraudster has with their bank. The application should include a request for an order that the fraudster’s bank provides the following information:
  • all contact details (mobile phone, home phone, email address, residential address etc.) for all signatories to the fraudster’s bank account and any other bank account held in the fraudster’s name or any other signatory to this bank account that is held at the bank
  • all bank statements for the fraudster’s bank account and any other bank account to which the fraudster or any other signatory has with the bank in question for a period of 6 months; and
  • the current balance of all bank accounts with the bank that is in the fraudster’s or any other signatory’s name.
  1. Once you get hold of the court order, this will need to be immediately emailed to the fraudster’s banks’ ‘court orders’ team who can process it. You can ask your bank for this email address.
  2. As soon as you receive the information from the fraudster’s bank, consider the following points:

(i) has your money been transferred or paid to any recognisable company you can contact, such as a known retailer

(ii) if you can identify a company that has received your money, you can then contact this company, explain what has happened and request they either cancel the transaction made by the fraudster or request them to hold onto the money they have received and

(iii) has the money been transferred to other bank accounts.

  1. If your money has been transferred out of the fraudster’s bank account and into another bank account, you have the option of returning to court and making an application for the information set out above and repeating the process set out above.
  2. When you have received the fraudster’s bank account statements, try to work out the dates and times of the transfers out of their accounts. Your bank will be under a duty to contact the fraudster’s bankers, who will then freeze the fraudster’s account.

If your bank has failed to act within a reasonable period of time after you have notified them of the fraud, which has enabled the fraudster to transfer your money without a trace, it is likely that your bank will have breached their duty and will have to compensate you.

Good luck.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

Equifax Data Breach

The personal data of up to 44 million British consumers was feared stolen by hackers in a massive cyber attack on Equifax.

The information commissioner said it was investigating how the hack on Equifax, a US credit rating firm, affected UK customers, many of whom will be unaware their data is held by the company.

Equifax and its UK subsidiary companies state on their websites that they represent British clients including BT, Capital One and British Gas.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has urged Equifax to alert affected UK customers as soon as possible, and said it will work with the relevant overseas authorities on behalf of British citizens.

Equifax admitted hackers had exposed the personal data of 143 million customers in the US, which was stolen between mid-May and July this year due to a vulnerability on its website. The hack was not made public until recently.

The stolen information includes names, social security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license details. It is also thought that around 209,000 credit card numbers were stolen.

Equifax said: “limited personal information” from British and Canadian residents had been compromised.

A spokesman for BT said: “We are aware of the developing story and are monitoring the situation closely. Like many companies in the UK, BT uses Equifax services. We are working on establishing whether this breach has any impact on those services.”

Lenders rely on the information collected by credit bureaus such as Equifax to help them decide whether to approve financing for homes, cars and credit cards.

Equifax chief executive Richard Smith said in a statement “I apologise to consumers and our business customers for the concern and frustration this causes.”

How to check if you are affected – go online to https://trustedidpremier.com/eligibility/eligibility.html and type in your last name and last 6 digits of your social security number and it should tell you if you have been affected by the data breach.

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Journalist Turns Anonymised Data into Profiles

A journalist and a data scientist secured anonymised browsing data for three million users. They created a fake marketing company to get the data and were able to de-anonymised much of it i.e. they could identify the users.

Anonymised data means the names have been removed along with supposedly anything that makes it possible to identify the individuals.

How is that Possible?

There are various techniques that can be used to identify people in the data, such as:-

  1. Anyone who visits their own Twitter analytics page will have a URL in their browsing record which contains their Twitter username. Find that URL, and you’ve linked the anonymous data to an actual person.
  2. A similar trick works for German social networking site Xing.

For other users, a more statistical approach can be used to de-anonymise the data. For instance, just 10 URLs can be enough to uniquely identify someone. For instance, how few people there are at your company, with your bank, your hobby, your preferred newspaper and your mobile phone provider. By creating “fingerprints” from the data, it’s possible to compare it to other, more public, sources of what URLs people have visited, such as social media accounts, or public YouTube playlists.

Eckert, a journalist, worked up with data scientist Andreas Dewes to acquire personal user data and see what they could get from it. They created a fake marketing company, complete with its own website, a LinkedIn page for its chief executive, and even a careers site.

The pair presented their findings at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas

They made the site full of pictures and marketing buzzwords, claiming to have developed a machine-learning algorithm which would be able to market more effectively to people, but only if it was trained with a large amount of data. Then they asked companies for anonymised data to try on their system.

The data they were eventually given came, for free, from a data broker, which was willing to let them test their hypothetical AI advertising platform.

Another discovery through the data collection occurred via Google Translate, which stores the text of every query put through it in the URL. From this, the researchers were able to uncover operational details about a German cybercrime investigation, since the detective involved was translating requests for assistance to foreign police forces.

Where did all of the data come from?  A number of browser plugins collect data, Google Translate collects data and various websites collect this data.

It is supposed to be anonymised when passed on to ensure no-one can identify the individuals, but this clearly is not true.

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