Category: Scam email

May 23, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

There are endless PayPal phishing emails – scammers trying to get your login and password. This latest one tries to look like it’s from PayPal but the sender’s email address is a long series of Russian characters. The message says “Please check that we attached for account information” which is poor grammar as it’s a randomly generated phrase from a series of words input by the scammer. The message has an attached pdf file that claims to be an invoice for you to check but no doubt contains malware and/or a phishing link. Never open such messages – go to your PayPal account directly (not from links in an email) if you need to check anything.

“Dear Patriot, we are now giving away FREE PM2.5 Breathing Masks to everybody affected by the Coronavirus”. Sounds good but is a lie. The message claims that the masks are worth $79 each but are currently free. There is a worldwide shortage and no-one gives them away randomly. If anyone did have actual masks and could afford to give them away they would do so at their nearest hospital or care home or to key workers. A simple scam.

Ms. Ileana Corea, Import manager at SADOWSKA-MAZUREK SP. Z O.O. in Poland wants details of my deliveries to her company. She’s especially interested in the weight of each item. This appears to be nonsensical as we have never heard of her company and do not ship goods anywhere. However, it is a typical message from scammer trying to find out which of the random email addresses she is sending to are valid company email addresses. Never respond to such messages as it will just result in that email address being sold to more scammers.

“Military Source Exposes Shocking TRUTH About Coronavirus And The 1 Thing You Must Do Before It’s TOO LATE” is a typical scam email title. The 1 thing you should do is delete such pathetic emails.

A message that starts with a medical warning then goes to offer a ludicrous scam alternative. “Statins and Type 2 Diabetes Risk”. It’s true that there is recent research that shows a link between people who are overweight and have elevated blood sugar and take statins and that combination of factors in people can give a higher risk of developing diabetes type 2. This doesn’t mean that the statins cause the increase. However, the scammer is trying to frighten people into stopping taking statins and that could be life threatening. The scammers alternative is a ‘weird’ Greek trick that reverses diabetes. No. It’s just scammer lies.

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May 21, 2020

Fake Amazon Prime Subscription

There are lots of scam emails trying to entice people to sign up for Amazon Prime at full price or a discount and these are mostly phishing emails – trying to get your confidential information.

This latest one takes the opposite approach.

The title is “This email confirms the Amazon Prime Subscription”

This email confirms the Amazon Prime Subscription

Hello [name]

Product Name: Amazon Prime One Year Plan

Receipt Date [date]

Payment Method: Amazon account

Membership price: 179

This subscription will automatically renew unless you turn it off no later than 24 hours before the end of the current period. To cancel auto-renewal or manage your subscriptions click below and sign in.

Cancel and Refund Amazon Prime

The link is to a website designed to look like Amazon and it collects your name and password to send to the scammer and tells you the money will be refunded, but of course that bit is untrue.

This is just a phishing scam to get your Amazon details.

Interesting that the scammer used the wrong price for Amazon Prime – it costs £79 not 179 as stated in the email.

It’s sometimes too easy to half read an email and if it looks legitimate to act by clicking the button – but don’t do that. Always read very carefully before clicking a link in an unsolicited email.

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May 16, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

An email warns me that my email address expires today unless I take action immediately. But the email address concerned was deleted 5 years ago and the emails to it are caught as spam, so there is no problem. Just a scammer who bought a very old spam email address list.

“Is Alzheimer’s really incurable?” is the title of yet another scam message offering a cure for this degenerative disease. The message tells you that the diseases is the 6^th largest cause of death in the United States. That is true and it does kill more than 100,000 people per year in America. But then the message goes on to claim that a transcript of an ancient Chinese healing secret shows how to prevent and to cure Alzheimer’s. No. All lies.

The email title is “Internet Providers Scared: This Device Boosts Your Home Wi-Fi into Another Dimension”. People who work in Marketing are known for ‘exaggerating’ the truth, but this is a simple scam. The message is actually about wi-fi boosters on the market that you plug into mains sockets around the house wherever the wi-fi signal is inadequate. This scammer wont actually sell you such a booster (but Walmart or any electronics retailer will) – the email address is expericnnash which is obviously made-up and the domain name is “.xyz” which is never used by reputable retailers. The scammer claims far too much which points it out as a scam.

Weight loss scams are very very common and this latest one is about a magical drink you take each morning and it results in massive weight loss. It evens burns more calories than a morning jog in cold weather. Your body burns calories in order to power your muscles. Jogging uses up calories but sitting around having a drink does not. The message also claims “Put this in your mug tomorrow morning and burn 3 lbs from your belly”. It is impossible to drink anything that only affects stomach fat. Total rubbish.

Mr Neil informs me that I still haven’t collected the £750,000 waiting for me as the last known heir of a deceased client of Heir Hunter’s Debt Recovery Unit. I think this scammer has been watching the Heir Hunters series on the BBC which highlight the work of the companies that chase down heirs when people die without leaving a will and the government has no easy way to find relatives. Sadly, there isn’t a rich dead relative who’s left me a stack of cash.

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May 9, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

I have been personally selected to participate in a new annual visitor survey and for my participation I have a chance to win a new Samsung smart phone. That may sound reasonable. However, if I had been personally selected then the sender would know my name but the email is addressed to “Congratulations”. The email contains various links – to the survey, to help, to contact details, to terms and conditions but they all point to exactly the same scammers page. Lazy scammer. Most likely, the web page is a phishing site after your personal information.

Another email says the author has found my website through diligent searching and offers to pay me to post his articles on my site. These are supposedly articles written by a top team of American writers. He wants to know how much I charge per post. People can only afford to pay random web sites to have their articles posted online if they are scam messages or illegal. No thanks.

Yet another ludicrous story of someone losing tons of weight just when they were at death’s door. This one stars Peter who was warned by doctors he would die if he didn’t lose weight, but he had tried every possible method and failed. Then he learned one ‘shocking’ trick and lost 84 pounds. Maybe he had his legs and arms removed – who knows? Losing weight is simple in principle – eat less and exercise more. The hard bit is the will power to actually do it and no magic trick is going to do that for anyone.

A slightly different take on weight loss as this scam message focuses on a fatty liver. “Professors predicted my fatty liver will kill me”. Couldn’t she find a doctor? – so took advice from a college professor. Maybe he was teaching maths or geography and wanted to be a part time doctor. Anyway, the message claims it can show you the secret of fixing your fatty liver and losing as much weight as you want and looking years younger. Yeah! Right!

A reminder from TV Licensing that I need to update my details. Click the button to start. But the message is from maha-china .com so is fake and it was sent to undisclosed recipients meaning it’s gone to probably millions of random people.

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May 3, 2020

Stupidest Spam of the Week Eye Window Cleaner

There are lots of scammers offering magic remedies for any kind of eye problems and this is one of the stupidest circulating currently.

The title of the email is ‘Windows Cleaner Trick for Your Eyes’.

It’s claim is about an ‘eye vitamin’ which has been recently discovered but also says that many baseball players have used this for a long time.

Both claims cannot be true.

Supposedly it takes just 15 minutes after taking the vitamin for your eyesight problems to clear up.

Eye problems have many different causes. For example:- some people have slightly misshapen eyes and hence need glasses. How can taking a vitamin magically change the shape of their eyes? Not possible.

There is no such vitamin as the eye vitamin. Most people who eat a reasonable diet get all of the vitamins they need and taking vitamins only has an effect if you are short of the vitamin concerned.

The message tells the story of Richard, aged 60, who has chucked away his glasses.

All just made up rubbish.

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May 2, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

A comment submitted to my web site says “Greetings everyone. My friends and I are surprised to have found the articles here. I’ve been scanning for this info since last fall and I will be imploring my colleagues to hop by.“ That might sound genuine but is a simple scam message. The author has created a standard message hoping It will apply to almost any website and used software to upload it to probably millions of sites. Genuine comments are always more specific. After paragraphs of flannel he finally gets around to the point of his comment which is to try to get me to access his website. No chance of that.

“Hey. My name is Kristina. I am looking for a guy for a relationship.” That’s a comment sent to the radio station website. It’s an obvious scam as no-one in their right mind would send such a message to people they don’t know. She claims she wants to change her life. Fine – stop scamming people.

The radio station gets endless messages in Russian and some in Greek and in unrecognisable languages. It is incredibly cheap to send out millions of scam and spam messages but surely they can get better scam software that recognises languages in use and can match the language to the websites targeted. So wasteful.

Lots of emails arrive that are just lists of links to addresses such as jacewbu1890112xv1561.blogs100.com. These could be to illegal sites, dangerous sites, sites full of malware ready to take over your computer etc. This scammer is too lazy to make even an attempt at disguising the links. Only a complete fool would click on such links.

Nicole Gapes claims to be a Director of some unnamed company and she wants to purchase some property and hopes to get the best price and I should let her know if that can be done. This is typical meaningless junk phrases from a scammer. She actually wants me to open the attached file which is made to look as if it’s a picture file but in fact is something more dangerous. Never open attached files of any kind from people you don’t know.

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