Stupidest Spam of the Week Crop Accounting

Some scammers try to get you to click a link by pretending to work for the same company as you e.g. claiming to be from the HR department with a new policy for you to read. Other scammers try to get you to open that link by claiming to be from an important customer or supplier with urgent documents for you.

This latest one to the radio station tries to be both at the same time, which can never work.

The message claims to be from Crop Accounting Specialist – obviously nothing to do with a radio station.

The subject is “ACH Payment” – seems meaningless

“Please find attached an electronic copy of your statement”.

So far, seems to be trying to make us believe they are a current customer or supplier.

Then the link to open claims to be on the Brooklands Radio website but is actually at nationalboilermkg.com.au which is clearly not Brooklands Radio.

And the message is signed off as Brooklands Radio

A confused and very stupid scammer.

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September 5, 2020

Time-Wasters Update

An email supposedly from Nat West warns us that they believe there has been unauthorised access to our account and they have temporarily frozen our account till we confirm it is OK. However we don’t have such an account so it’s a scam message.

Free electricity is a very common theme for scam messages. This latest one starts with a warning “THIS IS DISTURBING. Power companies panicked when they saw this. Click to see this secret method”. Where this strange belief in America that there are magical ways to generate electricity at no cost is very odd and not really shared elsewhere in the world. The ways to generate electricity are all well known and involve taking energy from somewhere (e.g. sunlight, the wind, tidal movements, geothermal energy etc) and transforming it into electricity. There are no secrets and the only thing that is disturbing is that people try to steal from the vulnerable using this type of scam.

A message claiming to be from The Royal bank of Scotland says that there has been a mistake in calculation of our quarterly service charge and we owe £42,243.52. The point of the message is to get us to download the attached file which is loaded with malware. No thanks.

Another advance fee scam email arrives. Michael Reed says he has an investment of £50 million in bearer bonds for a client who has died and he wants to transfer them to my name. The email is actually from malexjamass @gmail.com so Michael Reed has an identity problem and doesn’t even know my name yet wants to give me £50 million. This seems less likely than Elvis being spotted doing a gig on the moon. No thanks “Michael”.

Alaa Hameed tells me his company wants to fund any company in any project / investment of any interest or choice as he is a broker with high profile clients from Asia wanting to invest. Is it possible anyone would believe this is true? His return email address is different from the senders address which is always a bad sign and that return address is an AOL address which means personal rather than business. Plus, he doesn’t even know my name. Pathetic.

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September 4, 2020

National Crime Agency and Covid

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has launched a new initiative, bringing law enforcement and government together with the private sector to tackle criminals seeking to exploit the COVID-19 crisis for financial gain.

The new ‘OTELLO COVID-19 Fusion Cell’, led by the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) and co-sponsored by the private sector, brings together experts from across sectors – including the financial sector, insurance companies, trade bodies, law enforcement and the wider public sector.

The Cell aims to rapidly share information on changes to the economic crime threat related to COVID-19 and to proactively target, prevent and disrupt criminal activity, protecting businesses and the public.

There is concern that criminals are using the pandemic as a hook to harm vulnerable people for financial gain or to continue illicit activity. Whilst the overall level of fraud being reported has not significantly increased, there has been a noticeable shift towards scams directly linking to Coronavirus.

More people working from home and an increase in online activity has left both businesses and people vulnerable to scams. Lockdown has also changed the way people conduct their lives and business, with an increase in mobile banking, e-payments and cash stockpiling.

The Fusion Cell will work in partnership with industry to identify new trends and threats and decide on the most appropriate way to tackle it, building on the expertise of both the public and private sectors.

The Cell produces a weekly public/private threat dashboard, to inform areas for proactive tactical development and disruptive action.

Insight from developing the Fusion Cell has the potential to inform a longer term ambition to develop the capability to spot and stop economic crime before it happens, with real-time insight and disruptive activity through public-private data sharing

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

September 2, 2020

Cold Caller Number Lookup

It is estimated that each day, twelve million people in the UK receive one or more cold calls.

Have you received a scam call or an annoying cold call and wished you could register their phone number online to warn others about them?

Or do you want to know if a caller is a scammer or cold caller?

Go to www.badnumbers.co.uk to check their number or register the caller’s number as ‘bad’.

Bad Numbers is a reverse telephone number lookup website and has collected over 20,000 ‘bad’ telephone numbers so far.

The website is very simple – you just type in a number and see if it is already registered. If not and you want to register it then you type in why and that’s about it.

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August 31, 2020

The Fake Bride Scam

Jane Joseph claims she is British and lives in London and attends University and works part-time as a dress-maker.

The email explains her unusual situation.

I lost my father in an auto accident prompting my mother’s death because of it.

My Father, Dawson Joseph, willed me a large portion of his real estate holdings and properties valued at £10,500,000 Pounds sterling.

I have yet to place a claim on it but right now things are not good and I’d like to have it. My father’s stipulation was that I was either 30 years of age or married.

(Allowing my husband to be in control). I am 26 so only my husband can make a claim on my behalf. I’d like to offer you the opportunity to stand in as my husband and will share of it for your assistance. Your interests will be properly protected.

So, by getting someone to claim to be her husband she can claim the millions and share them with the fake husband of course.

How does the scammer benefit from this email?

Not so obvious. It could be that she just wants to marry an EU citizen to gain access to living in the EU (the email is from a Turkish address).

Or it could be that on someone agreeing to be the fake husband then there would be lots of unexpected costs to be met (by the fake husband) until she’s got as much money as possible and disappears.

Or maybe there’s another answer – if you know then send me an email.

It’s a very obvious scam email and little attempt has been made to make it seem realistic.

The email is from [email protected] rather than a personal email address

The reply email address is Turkish.

The use of phrases such as ‘auto accident’ and ‘real estate’ and ‘pounds sterling’ are clearly not ones that a British person would choose.

Don’t think I’ll get married today after all (not even for a share of £10.5 million)

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How Identity Theft Can Happen Through Social Networking