Stupidest Spam of the Week Magic Vision

“Scientists: Vision Problems Have Nothing To Do With Your Eyes”.

This is a typical scammer headline on an email. It’s designed to catch your attention, so you read the message.

There is a colourful graphic of a brain, which looks good but shows nothing of any value.

Then some more dramatic statements

“Even brain doctors were left in complete awe…”

“They just couldn’t believe vision problems has absolutely nothing to do with the eyes”.

“Vision problems are a symptom of another hidden condition”.

It’s obviously rubbish, as anyone who wears glasses to correct their eyesight can tell you their vision problem is definitely their eyes and that’s why glasses work. If the problem was not their eyes then glasses would have no effect.

So how can anyone with more than two brain cells be pulled into this pathetic scam?

That’s the only mystery.

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November 14, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

Sheryl Goedert wants to give me $1.8 Million out of the $396 million she won in January. If you’ve got that much, why not give some away. Shame it’s not real, – the sender is just a scammer as no-one in their right mind offers to give away large sums of money to people without even knowing who they are.

“Shipping with multiple transport providers in today’s complex omni-channel environment is a must or should be for all of us”. This spammer may be a genuine business or just a scammer – who knows? But I certainly don’t care as the sender is too dumb to realise that radio stations don’t ship goods around the world and the message was sent to a fake email address invented by a mailing list creator.

There are endless emails offering silicone bracelets that you fill with hand sanitiser. Doesn’t seem very practical to me but maybe for some people they will help. Useful or not – do not buy from unsolicited emails as there will always be better quality and price available if you look at reputable sellers rather than risking poor quality or non-existent items from a scammer.

Lots more email messages demanding that we fill in the attached form to be registered on the EU Business Register. No thanks. It’s entirely pointless.

A message supposedly from Gabriel Komlan but the email sender is an outlook address that doesn’t match. She claims that there is an unclaimed legacy foundation in the name of her late client who has the same last name and same nationality as me. However, the email is addressed to Hello Dear so she has no idea what my name is. She also gives a different return email address which is a trick used by many scammers and usually means the sender’s email belongs to someone else and she stole that address to send out her dreadful scam messages. Sad and pathetic.

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November 13, 2020

An Introduction to Scambaiting

We have all received unsolicited emails offering us a ’get rich quick’ opportunity. These are soften called 419 scams or Advance Fee scams. The scammer makes you believe there is a fortune for you to collect but you end up paying a small fee then another fee then another until eventually you realise it’s a con and give up.

You can just delete these messages or you can choose to play the scammers at their own game. They lie so why shouldn’t you. Make up your own persona and story.

The are various communities of scambaiters and the most famous is 419eater which you can find at 419eater.com with lots of examples of what they do.

Why Scambait?

It is very difficult to stop these people, but by wasting their time you are preventing their attention on scamming someone else. Plus an effective scambait may well give you personal information about the scammer – that can be passed on to the Authorities. Reporting the scambait online also warns others of how the scams work and what they can to tie up the scammers. If you can get their name, address and more then you can publish it on a scambaiter website.

Scambaiting Strategies

Create yourself a fake persona with name, address, email addresses, back story etc. and you’re ready to go when a 419 scam lands in your email inbox.

The most common strategies used by scambaiters are:-

just go with whatever comes up in the emails
try to get the scammer to join your Church. Promise the payments he wants once he has joined you imaginary Church.
get the scammer to pay the freight charge of delivering something entirely useless to him. Gives you an address to publish.
get the scammer to travel to meet you (you wont be there of course) e.g. your false address
make up characters to bring into the story e.g. Messrs Screw Hup and Ivor Itch solicitors or a fake Church Deacon or your neighbour Mac Donald

Keep those scammers busy and have some fun at their expense.

November 12, 2020

Warning: Chain letter Scams

Chain Letters used to be very common as physical letters , in the days before home computing. These do still exist but almost all chain letters these days are by email.

We’ve all received email chain letters – urgent messages that warn us of computer viruses, social media fraud, money making opportunities, urgent charity requests etc. Typically, these emails will exhort you to add your name and forward them to other people – DO NOT. Press the Delete button instead.

Some chain letters can be amusing, but others may contain security threats – viruses or phishing attempts etc.

In recent years, they have appeared on social media as well. Some are carefully crafted and similar to the physical letters but some are very different, consisting of just a few lines directly pitching “Money for Nothing” schemes unashamedly. It is surprising that people fall for these such obvious frauds but some do. Unfortunately people are so used on social media to just retweeting or reposting without thought that these frauds can circulate quickly.

There are 5 main categories of chain letter:-

A sick child story. A story about how the child needs expensive treatment that the parents cannot afford. The message asks you to donate and to pass on the message so more people can donate.
Fake warnings e.g. that Facebook accounts can all be hacked within seconds or that a new virus is spreading or that an email with a specified title can wipe out all of your files etc.
Big money. A promise of a large financial reward if you take a list of specified steps. This is backed up by a celebrity name e.g. Bill Gates recommends this or Beyonce swears by this etc. Sign up and also your friends but only if you act fast. Always fake.
Petitions, which can be for something obvious such as ban all whaling or can be something very specific. In any case, the idea is to get your name and address which can then be used for a variety of fraudulent purposes.
These used to be very common but less so nowadays. The idea is to threaten bad luck if you don’t pass on the message.

Never forward any message you are unsure about.

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

November 11, 2020

New York Coronavirus Frauds

By mid-summer, Americans had lost an estimated $145 Million to Coronavirus Fraud and more than 200,000 complaints of scams and fraud had been filed according to the Federal Trade Commission.

These scams are typically:

Fake products e.g. torches that supposedly shine light to destroy all viruses and bacteria but are just blue light which has no effect or PPE that is such poor quality as to be useless
Fake services e.g. people turning up at your door offering to sanitise your driveway for a high price
Fake tests i.e. fake versions of the real Coronavirus tests used by health professionals, but these ones do not work.
Fake claims for government help e.g. the companies that offered to make hospital ventilators and took payment for them but had no clue how to make them
Fake offers to businesses of loans to help them over Covid-19 restrictions

In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, government and the authorities have been working hard to offer stimulus packages, business support grants and loans, plus various job retention schemes and direct help for the public.

Unfortunately, the speed of response has left loopholes which scammers are quick to exploit and they also seek to benefit from fear of the virus by offering products that don’t work and pointless services supposedly to protect people. The authorities have confiscated and prosecuted numerous criminals for trying to sell unauthorised Coronavirus tests and fake cures.

Some of the frauds are simple phishing exercises – intended to get your personal information that can be sold to identity thieves. The scammers simply use Coronavirus therapies or cures as bait for the scam.

The general advice from the authorities is to beware cold callers, spam emails and anyone offering anything to do with Coronavirus that is not certified.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.