Category: Fight Back

Trading Standards Takes Down Wyvern Media

cops_679276_640Trading Standards recently carried out its biggest ever investigation, into a group operating as Wyvern Media group.

This group sold advertising space in their publications by cold calling. Sometimes they would claim the company had won a prestigious industry award and must advertise the fact.  At times they would call every hour pressurising companies into buying more adverts or at other times they simply charged the clients account for non-existent adverts.

Sadly for the victims the advertising sold was worthless.  It was either non-existent or in a back water publication with very low readership but claimed to be a major national publication.

Jonathan Rivers was head of Derby-based Wyvern Media group and led a sophisticated operation employing up to 250 people in 12 offices across the UK and had a turnover of around £7 million.

The Nottingham Crown Court heard he admitted fraudulent trading after more than 500 complaints were lodged.

He was jailed for six years. Four other members of staff were jailed, with a further five given suspended sentences.

Rivers, 55, of Coleshill, Warwickshire, was described by Judge Stuart Rafferty as the “head, heart and soul” of the company, which had about 18,000 customers per year and an estimated annual turnover of £7m.

Several small businesses (including charities) were bankrupted by the actions of the group stealing money from them

These scams leave a trail of misery and broken people and businesses behind them.

Well done Trading Standards in stopping this group.

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Government Fights Back Against Cyber Attackers

 

The government has been surprised by the level of Internet attacks on  government systems, the defence industry, the NHS and on critical business such as the electric companies, water companies etc. and even attacks on household names such as Tesco.

It can be hard to pin down who’s to blame for these attacks but they say there are basically 3 groups involved – government sponsored cyber specialists,  criminals and people who just take up the challenge of hacking.

The obvious guess as to the state sponsored cyber hackers is China and more recently Russia. Both countries deny this of course.

The British government has employed cyber specialists for some time to prevent these attacks from succeeding but the time has come for a big increase in spending on this and to officially warn the cyber attackers that the UK will not only defend itself against such attacks but will respond aggressively to any such attackers.

Philip Hammond confirmed that UK security services would cause “damage, disruption or destruction” against those that attack the UK. These “offensive” capabilities would include proactive cyber attacks as well as the ability to defend against incoming disruption attempts.

This seems to be a significant ramping up of the country’s ability in this arena and in particularly that they will go on the offensive where required.

This is a five year strategy and effectively doubles the current spending on cyber defence.

The government claim it is making progress in cyber defence

e.g.1. where it used to take a month to shut down a website spreading viruses it now can be done in 2 days

e.g.2 websites pretending to be government departments can be shut down in hours where it used to take days.

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Security Blogger Scams the Scammer

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A French security blogger named Ivan Kwiatkowski was incensed when scammers tried to scam his parents by pretending to be Microsoft helping them sort out virus problems.

Ivan decided to find out more about these scammers and see if he could turn the tables on them. He called the number his parents had called and a lady named Patricia answered. He spun her a yarn about his computer having problems with Zeus virus and could she help.

Oh yes she could.

It is typical with these scams, for the scammer to install software on the victim’s PC supposedly to ‘see how bad the problem is’ but in fact to use a cheat so as to show the extent of the ‘fake’ problem’ and maybe to look for credit card details and passwords etc.

Ivan had setup a PC off the network so he could let the scammer have a look around safely.

He allowed Patricia to take control of the PC and install her software. She told him she’d found that the PC had 1452 viruses and she could supply anti-virus software and fix it for $189.90. Ivan told her he’d buy the software in Paris where he lives and the conversation ended, to the scammers surprise.

But Ivan wasn’t finished yet – he phoned back and spoke with a new scammer, Dileep, who checked the situation and offered to clean the PC of viruses and install anti-virus protection for $299.99.

Ivan offered to buy the package but when it came to giving credit card details – he had fake card details to use but pretended he couldn’t read very well so when the card number was rejected he claimed poor eyesight was the problem. After numerous attempts he had a brainwave. Ivan had j.Locky ransomware on disk as he had been researching it recently.

He convinced Dileep to accept a photo of the card so he could read the numbers himself, but Ivan send the photo with j.Locky attached.

The scammer didn’t know it but j.Locky would be busy in the background encrypting all of his files then would demand a ransom to have them released.

Scam the scammer.

Nice one Ivan

To read the original account of the scam, go to https://blog.kwiatkowski.fr/?q=en/node/30

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

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Chris Deals With Cold Callers

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A guest post by Chris.

I don’t intend to be rude to cold callers but they do have scripts to work to and I disrupt that by giving unexpected answers or questions.

If they claim to be doing a survey, then I might say

“What’s in it for me?”

Probably, they’ll tell me there isn’t anything or the slow witted ones just keep asking questions.

I might say “I cannot believe you are asking for information without giving me anything.”

If they say I am going to be entered into a draw or be given £100 voucher off double glazing for example  then I might say “Send me the cash or draw coupon or whatever first then I’ll answer questions”

A lot of the cold callers are from call centres in India and I have visited India several times so I might ask them whereabouts they are and ask about the weather or is my favourite hotel still there or something similar.

They don’t like talking about these things as it’s not on their script.

Other times, I might try to make the cold caller feel guilty.

I could tell them I have come down from the top of a ladder where I am painting the roof or been dragged in from the garden where I am cutting down trees to answer the phone.

Sometimes that works and other times they just stick to the script.

If they ring at lunchtime I always tell them I am hosting an important lunch party and cannot discuss my power suppliers or whatever it is they want at that time.

Of course that can lead to them suggesting they call again which obviously I don’t want.

If they are calling from England at lunch time then I might say

“Why are you calling at lunch time – are you not allowed lunch? I should have a word with my boss about that”

It can be entertaining dealing with cold callers but can just be an annoyance.

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Dealing With a BT OpenReach Scammer

openreach_logo“Hello, My name is Katie and I’m calling you from BT OpenReach.”

Then she paused , waiting to see if I said I didn’t have a contract with OpenReach. When I didn’t say that she continued.

“The reason for the call is that we have to suspend your account in the next 48 hours.”

Again the pause to see if I was worried by the statement.

Me: “Right”

“We have to do that because we have received reports of some unauthorised activity at your IP address and because your IP address is active between 2 am and 4 am

So we have to suspend your account.”

Me: “OK”

“To help us fix the problems you need to tell me some information

Sir, are you using the Internet on your computer or mobile phone or other device?”

Me: “Oh I don’t think I can tell you that”

“But Sir you must tell us or we cannot fix the problem and that means the whole network is in danger”

“That’s terrible, but can’t you fix the problem anyway?”

Katie put the phone down.

This is a variant of the Microsoft support call scam where the caller tells you your PC is infected with a virus and they can fix it for a payment.

In this case, I assume she was after basic information  of who I am then she would no doubt need my login and password details etc. And likely would  want to download remote control software to my PC so she could take control of it and find credit card details etc.

Just a pathetic scam.

When you recognise a scam phone call – you can choose to tell them straightaway what you think of them or you can choose to play along and let them talk or even join in and act the part as if you are being conned. At some point they realise you’re not falling for the scam and typically they just put the phone down and move on to their next target. But wasting their time is quite fun.

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Crackdown by Information Commissioner

hand-155662_640Welcoming recent government changes, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said:
“The rules around marketing calls have been a licence for spammers and scammers, and people are sick of them. This law change gives consumers the chance to fight back.
“We still need people to report these calls to us, but now we can use those complaints to better target the companies behind this nuisance.”
Electronic marketing, including marketing calls and texts, are covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). The regulations require organisations to have an individual’s consent to make automated marketing calls or send marketing texts to that person.

For live marketing calls, the organisation must not contact people that have opted out of receiving them; most commonly by registering with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).
The Information Commissioners Office currently has the power to issue penalties of up to £500,000 if able to prove that the marketing calls or messages caused, or had the potential to cause, ‘substantial damage or distress’. The ICO has called for this bar to be lowered to make it easier to fine companies who are breaching the regulations but who would currently not meet this statutory bar.
The changes which came into effect on 6 April 2015.
1. Spam texters held to account
Any company sending you a marketing text without your permission is already breaking the law. As it stands, the law requires the ICO to prove ‘substantial harm or substantial distress’ and now this threshold has been reduced. Making it easier for ICO to make fines stick should create more of a deterrent, and that would lower how many nuisance messages we all get.
2. Companies will need to play by the rules
It’s a myth that nuisance calls are all from a handful of bad guys. In September, the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) received over 2,000 complaints about nuisance calls. Of those, 38 companies featured in more than ten complaints. That suggests they’re probably breaking the law, but not in a way serious enough for the ICO to be able to fine them.
3. More fines means fewer calls and texts
While fines for nuisance calls and texts are relatively new, recent independent analysis of those Data Protection Act fines showed that 60 per cent of organisations had looked to improve their compliance with the law after a company in their sector was fined. More fines for companies making nuisance calls and sending spam texts should have the same affect.
4. People complaining will be more important than ever
The ICO received 161,720 concerns about nuisance calls and texts in 2015. That’s a lot of people who want to see us take action, and their complaints have meant the ICO has been able to raid offices and call centres, prosecute people and issue fines. You can report a nuisance call or a spam text to the ICO online.
Have these changes proved worthwhile?
Since the change in the law was introduced, the ICO has issued fines totalling more than £2 million compared with just £360,000 during the previous 12 months.
So that’s a YES