Police Report Common Phone Scams

The National Fraud Bureau reports that the most common phone scams are:

  1. False reports of a problem with your computer or device
  2. A fake fraud investigation
  3. An investment opportunity

Number 1 is better known as the Microsoft Support scam as most of the scammers cold call random people, pretending to be from Microsoft Support and warning of a severe computer problem. They offer to fix it and to do so they need access to your computer and will charge a fee for their time or for some software they supposedly have to install.

Since these scams became commonplace, most people know to put the phone down on any such call. A message to the same effect (you have a computer problem – call …) may pop up when you are on a new website and it will exhort you to phone a specified phone number – this will be to a scam call centre so do not call it.

Number 2 is the fake fraud investigation which can take many forms with the scammer pretending to be from your bank or the government or the Police etc. Usually, they warn you that your bank account has been hacked and they will assist you to save your remaining money – i.e. by taking it away from you. Any such callers should be ignored but if you want to check with your bank then use a different phone to call your bank on a known number.

Number 3 is scammers offering investments that have zero risk and give guaranteed returns are always fake and you should seek expert advice before making any investment.

Anything that looks too good to be true is almost certainly a scam.

Stay safe.

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

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How do fraudsters get my personal information?

When scammers get hold of your personal information, it can lead to serious trouble. Those details can be used directly in fraud or be used to put together a more detailed picture of you that can be sold to identity thieves.

Personal details can include:

  • Full name, address and contact details
  • Bank account numbers and login information
  • Logins and passwords for websites
  • Identification numbers, e.g. passport details or driving licence

There are four main methods that scammers use to get your personal information.

  1. Phishing Scams and Buying From Other Criminals

Criminals get your information from phishing exercises, fake competitions, fake websites etc. and often they simply find a business email address then make up entries by combining common first names with the business email address. If they get a response to their spam emails that tells them you have an active email account and you will get a lot more scam and spam messages.

They also buy this data from other scammers and spammers who sell list of people’s information on the dark web.

Simple data such as name and address sells for just tens of dollars per thousand people but financial data sells for much higher prices e.g. valid credit card details plus the security number on the back and the persons full name can sell for up to hundreds of dollars per person.

  1. Data brokers

These companies collect and sell all the data they can legally find, such as names, date of birth, telephone numbers, addresses, land records, marriage records, criminal history, social media profiles etc. They consolidate this data from dozens of different public records, then compile it online.

A lot of the information is likely to be out of date or just wrong, but some is likely to be accurate.

  1. Data breaches

This is where hackers break into organisation’s computer systems to steal data. Sometimes this is published on the dark web and sometimes sold directly to other criminals.

The targeted information may include names, driver’s license numbers, medical and financial records, and email addresses and passwords.

  1. Social media and blogs

Your social media accounts may contain all the pieces a cybercriminal needs to commit fraud, such as your full name, where you live and work, photos of you and your family, holiday plans, and your favourite bands and hobbies. E,g,  some people use a pet’s name as a password or as an answer to a security question so if your pet is on your social media then they will try it.

Removing social profiles and information on blogs or at least restricting the personal information makes it harder for the criminals to scam you.

Make sure the scammers cannot get your personal information – stay safe.

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

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The Shibu Inu Cryptocurrency Scam

We are all getting used to the idea of cryptocurrencies such as the attention getting Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there are also weird ones such as Shibu Inu which was started largely as a joke. The creator made hundreds of trillions of coins, so that they can only ever be worth a tiny fraction of a cent each.

To increase their value, various organisations try to buy up Shibu Inu coins and burn them i.e. destroy them thereby increasing the value of the remaining coins.

People even have burn parties where they all contribute some coins and communally destroy them.

Is that Weird? Yes!

This isn’t a scam – it’s all perfectly legal and people knowingly destroy the coins.

But, scammers want to join in of course – to make money at other people’s expense.

A scam email tells a story of people working together to burn Shibu Inu but first of all making millions of dollars.

They say you just have to follow the instructions to buy lots of Shibu Inu coins then join  2 projects where you will make hundreds to thousands of dollars each day as robots automatically trade cryptocurrency for you.

Then you donate some coins and it all gets burned, except for the dollars you made and hence keep.

This is a scam.

By getting people to buy lots of Shibu Inu coins, the scammers hope to push up the value so they can then sell theirs and make a profit. This makes the price drop and the recent purchasers lose money.

That’s the classic pump and dump scam.

You may choose to buy Shibu Inu as an investment or just to take part in the growth of cybercurrency, but don’t join anything advertised by cold calls or spam emails as these are almost always perpetrated by criminals.

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

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Stupidest Scam or Spam of the Week Magic Pain Relief

Scammers love to offer some latest magical way to stop pain, because it’s an easy sell. So many people have long term pain that modern drugs are either to addictive for or cannot resolve so they look for alternatives.

“Ancient healing technique backed by Harvard”.

The email has pages of junk such as:

“How a 70 year old woman with crippling arthritis in her knee can now walk pain free”

“How one woman was able to stop her cholesterol meds”

“You can even rub away diabetes”

“Destroy all viruses”

The magic is supposedly in the ancient technique used by all parents that when a child bangs  their knee for example – if you rub it, that blocks the pain sensation so the child feels less pain.

But of course it’s not a cure in any sense – it just a temporary way to block pain signals.

Severe arthritis is painful because of damage in the joints – so reducing the pain sensation may be helpful but only works for the seconds you rub and does not cure anything so no-one with arthritis can possibly be cured by this.

As for eradicating viruses from your body or curing diabetes by rubbing – that is pathetically stupid.

Of course, if you check at Harvard University there is no such study.

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