The Fake Loan Application Scam

You receive a letter from a loans company telling you that someone has applied for a loan in your name and the company believe that it wasn’t you, but someone impersonating you who tried to take out that loan.

Now, that sounds worrying and these things do happen, so the letter could be genuine.

However, scammers also use this approach to try to get your personal information – it’s their despicable form of Marketing.

The letter may tell a story about someone impersonating you and may give some accurate information about you – usually taken from the electoral register i.e. name and address.

The letter then goes on to say they will register you on the government CIFAS service to protect you against further such attempts and may include a separate letter telling you about the benefits of CIFAS.

See https://fightback.ninja/cifas-identity-protection-registration/ for further information on CIFAS.

The problem comes if the letter asks for you confidential details e.g. full name, date of birth, email address, full address etc.

Registering on CIFAS will need you to provide such information but do not give it to a company claiming they will register for you.

If you decide you want to register on CIFAS then do so yourself safely and do not give out confidential information to others without being totally sure it is safe to do so.

The letter from the loans company is likely just a scam – they get your information under the false guise of protecting you then will use that information to try to sell you their services or sell the data to other scammers

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

Fightback Ninja Signature

Don’t Be Tracked Online So Easily

More and more websites, online services, social media sites, APPS etc want to track us – track what we buy, track where we go online, track any details about us they can get e.g. IP address, location etc.  because that data is valuable to them.

Sometimes they ask for permission to track us e.g. when you agree to their terms and condition, but often that’s not the case.

Is it all bad?

No.

For example, that tracking means the website can serve up adverts more to your liking rather than random ads, but many people don’t like that as it often takes the form of the same adverts following you from website to website.

How to Reduce Your Trackable Information

Reduce the level of information about you on the Internet to a necessary minimum and be aware that criminals can use whatever information they find against you.

  1. Email addresses

You can use multiple email addresses to separate your online activities e.g. use one email address for financial matters and one for social media and one for retail sites and one for unimportant websites.

You can also use disposable/ one time email addresses for any site you think will send you spam.

  1. Withhold your information or make stuff up where it’s not important e.g. misspell your name and give a fake birthdate
  2. If you’re not using any online accounts then delete them – you can always open a new one if needed
  3. Be careful of anything you publish on social media or that other people publish about you – e.g. pets names (possible passwords) or dates you’ll be away e.g. on holiday

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

Fightback Ninja Signature

The Which? Investment Scam

Scammers are using the name Which? Magazine to make their scam messages about cyber currency investments seem genuine.

Which? Magazine are clear that they never send emails recommending people buy cybercurrency or any other ‘investment’.

Which? Magazine take these criminal activities very seriously and do everything they can to stop the criminals using  the name Which? but it’s difficult to stop them all.

The scam messages typically also include the Which magazine logo and copyright message.

The fake messages use email addresses that are obviously not Which? magazine.

Typically they claim to be advertising ‘Which? Recommended Bonds’ and state that these have ‘been closely vetted by a member of our team’ , then there’s a link to click to see the rates on offer. The link is to a fake website made to look like Which? magazine, but it sends your details to the scammer and there are no bonds etc.

It also states that Which? Bond Rates is an Introducer Appointed Representative of Which? Financial Services Limited. That is untrue.

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

Fightback Ninja Signature

Stupidest Scam or Spam of the Week PayPal Fakes

More than four hundred million people now use PayPal for paying on line so scammers target those users with their phishing scams and fake websites.

Most scammers just copy a typical message from PayPal – use the correct layout, grammar, logo, safety messages etc.

But some are as dumb as dog dirt and send ridiculous messages that are obviously fake.

This latest scammer uses terrible grammar, nothing copied from a real PayPal email message and the text makes no sense.

The message is addressed to “USER”

“Your request is pending of your $805.78”.

“If you have not done this then reach us”.

“It will take 2-3 working days to reflect on your statement”.

“Item: HP Deskjet 2050S wifi inkje status: Pending”.

The top of the message says it’s from Pay-Pay and the bottom says its from Pay-Pal.

Both are incorrect as it’s a from a Gmail account which means it’s from a person (i.e. a scammer) not a business.

Do click on the Facebook or Twitter icons on top right to follow Fight Back Ninja.

Fightback Ninja Signature

The UK Online Safety Bill Makes Progress

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/world-first-online-safety-laws-introduced-in-pa

The UK Online Safety Bill marks a milestone in the fight for a new digital age which is safer for users and holds tech giants to account. It will protect children from harmful content such as pornography and limit people’s exposure to illegal content, while protecting freedom of speech.

At least that’s the intention, but these matters are very difficult to codify into law and the online world keeps changing at an ever faster pace.

Key points include:

  • It will require social media platforms, search engines and other apps and websites allowing people to post their own content to protect children, tackle illegal activity and uphold their stated terms and conditions.
  • The regulator Ofcom will have the power to fine companies failing to comply with the laws up to ten per cent of their annual global turnover, force them to improve their practices and block non-compliant sites.
  • Executives whose companies fail to cooperate with Ofcom’s information requests could now face prosecution or jail time within two months of the Bill becoming law, instead of two years as it was previously drafted.

The government significantly strengthened the Bill since it was first published in draft in May 2021. Changes since the draft Bill include:

  • Making sure all websites which publish or host pornography, including commercial sites, put robust checks in place to ensure users are 18 years old or over.
  • Adding new measures to clamp down on anonymous trolls to give people more control over who can contact them and what they see online.
  • Making companies proactively tackle the most harmful illegal content and criminal activity quicker.
  • Criminalising the sending of unsolicited sexual images to people using social media, known as cyber-flashing
  • Giving people the right to appeal if they feel their social media posts were removed unfairly
  • Preventing online scams, such as paid-for fraudulent adverts, investment fraud and romance scammers
  • Requiring pornography websites to verify their users’ ages

Any firm breaching the rules would face a fine of up to 10% of its turnover, while non-compliant websites could be blocked entirely.

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