Author: comptroller

June 3, 2019

The Paid Articles Scam

Anyone with a blog or articles website or similar is likely to get people emailing in asking to write blog posts or articles for them.

This is OK and some of the offers are genuine although most will expect to be paid for their contribution. When you reply that you don’t pay for articles, you never hear from most of them again.

If you do choose to accept such external contributions, make sure to test the quality of the work before paying.

There are also scammers who play this game – offering posts and articles to anyone with a blog or article site.

They usually offer to pay up to $100 to have their writing posted on your site.

Clearly this is not a sensible offer and shows the sender to be a scammer.

A recent such scammer claims to represent a business but uses a Gmail address so there is no company, just an individual trying to scam people.

How they actually try to scam money from you can be complicated but in most cases, they simply want to verify that you have a blog or similar so they can try posting unwanted comments etc. advertising products they get paid for.

Ignore them. It is a mistake to reply to such messages.

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June 2, 2019

Stupidest Scam of the Week Are You Dead

The message is yet another simple 419 scam I.e. someone offering riches and I just have to do something very simple to get my hands on those millions.

The millions of dollars, pounds or any other currency do not exist, of course.

This message claims to be from International Monetary Fund department of World Debt Reconciliation Services

The email address doesn’t match that, as it’s obviously a scam message.

The funny part of the email is that they claim two men have provided evidence that I am dead (from throat cancer) and hence the $12.5 million due to me should be given to them.

The sender then asks me to confirm that I am dead and that I have only 24 hours to do so or it may be dangerous.

I can’t be in much danger if I’m dead, but then they don’t even know my name – I am ‘undisclosed recipients’

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June 1, 2019

Time-Wasters Update

“New arrivals for your pets, visit our shop today and get -10% for all products”. The message is from healthxfrank @aol.jp so there are no pet supplies, just a scam.

A message that starts with “Keeps your house clean automatically” then goes on about this wonderful new product called Clean Bot which is meant to be a robot vacuum cleaner. There are various such robots on the market ranging from cheap and useless to expensive but superb. This one claims to be cheap and super powerful but runs on just 2 AAA batteries. Any vacuum cleaner running on just 2 AAA batteries would have all the suction power of an exhausted asthmatic mouse. However, the robot cleaner doesn’t exist – it’s a scam.

A nameless idiot from mynlabority.top states that “Doctors can scream this is medically impossible all they want but they can’t deny the lab test results”. That’s because there are no lab test results, just a scammer offering a magic remedy for diabetes that supposedly makes all diabetes drugs useless. The only useless thing is the scammer.

A message screams the headline “See The Truth About Blood Pressure Meds” but the content is actually an advert for GPS tracker for trucks. A sad moron sending out spam messages. I hope no-one ever buys their product even if it actually exists.

Some people love a good conspiracy and many scammers like to try to promulgate conspiracy as a way to get people interested in whatever lies they are peddling. This email is full of attempts to impress such as “Secret NASA funding Revealed” and “The Second Biggest Source of Energy After the Sun” and “A device built by NASA engineers”. It’s all pointless targeted at anyone dumb enough to click the links to supposedly find out this massive secret but the only thing hidden is the scammers greed.

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May 31, 2019

Nuisance Call Bosses Fined Up to £500,000

Estimates by telecoms regulator Ofcom show British consumers were bombarded with 3.9 billion nuisance phone calls and texts in 2018.

Company directors whose firms make unsolicited nuisance calls are now directly liable and could face fines of up to £500,000 under recent legislation from the Information Commissioner (ICO).

In the past some company directors had avoided company penalties for nuisance calls by going bankrupt and then starting a new firm under a different name. Once a company has been dissolved any penalties cannot be collectable.

Previously, it was only the businesses themselves that were liable for fines of up to £500,000 rather than individuals.

Andy Curry, of the nuisance call enforcement team at the ICO, said “It will mean we can recover the fine more easily and also make it much harder for unscrupulous operators to set up in business again.”

Last year, the ICO issued 26 penalties totalling £3.28 million for breaches of electronic marketing laws relating to nuisance calls and spam text messages, along with 10 enforcement notices.

Minister for digital and creative industries Margot James said: “We are determined to stamp this menace out and this new law is the latest in a series of measures to rid society of the plague of nuisance calls.”

If you have any experiences with nuisance callers – do let me know, by email.

May 30, 2019

Binance Crypto Exchange Hacked

BINANCE is one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges I.e. an exchange for online currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple etc. . Hackers patiently built up information and hacked into the services and stole stole 7,000 bitcoin (about $40 million) — but also stole user security codes (two-factor authentication codes and API tokens) which can lead to further thefts.

Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng said “The hackers used a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks”. “The hackers had the patience to wait, and execute well-orchestrated actions through multiple seemingly independent accounts at the most opportune time. The transaction was structured in a way that passed our existing security checks.”

The hackers compromised multiple high-net-worth accounts, whose Bitcoin was kept in Binance’s hot wallet—which, unlike cold wallets, are connected to the internet. Anyone who keeps their Bitcoin in a Binance hot wallet should change that immediately.

The hackers got access to security codes for some users and that means they may still control certain user accounts and may use those to influence prices. Binance say they will monitor the situation closely.

Cyber currencies still seem a little like the Wild West and are taking a long time to become mainstream and become as safe as mainstream currency.

If you have any experiences with crypto-currencies do let me know, by email.

May 29, 2019

Are Companies That Only Use Paypal Untrustworthy

When you come across a business that only accepts payment by PayPal, this may be fine or may make you wonder why they cannot accept credit or debit cards. Is it to avoid extra costs and complexity in their business or is there a more shady reason?

A company may choose to only allow payment by Paypal for a variety of reasons, such as :-

They are a single person business and don’t want the complexity of a payment system other than the simplest, which is PayPal
They may only operate on eBay or ETSY or similar auction sites / niche retail sites and not be able to offer other payment options
They are a small business with plans to grow but don’t want the overheads of multiple payments systems until essential
PayPal charges area a lot less than credit card charges.
They are a scam operation and are likely to disappear after taking in customer payments.

Plus, Paypal payments release the money immediately to the retailer whereas payments by credit card take time to be completed.

Many small businesses find it difficult to pay the costs of having a credit/debit card payment system. Also, PayPal was started in conjunction with E-bay, so is well trusted by buyers and holds the money until the buyer verifies the quality and condition of the item.

It is easy to integrate PayPal with most website and a lot of hosting services offer Paypal integration without charge.

Adding a facility for taking card payments does cost – possible $25 – $50 per month from a merchant provider and the banks do often charge more for credit card transactions.

If you want to buy from an online business but are worried by the lack of alternatives payments to PayPal then research the business and check for online of their products and the business and then make your choice.

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