Would You Like a Steel Bite?

Dental treatment can be very expensive and some scammers offer cheap ways to fix dental problems.

This latest is titled “Steel Bite” and offers almost instant fixing of any tooth or gum problems through a magic new vitamin.

First off it says your problems (which can be anything at all to do with teeth or gums) are not caused by lack of dental hygiene or diet but by lack of a magic newly discovered vitamin that is so rare that only 2% of the population have it.

If that was true then nature would not have designed our teeth to need the stuff as 98% of people would have major dental problems and there weren’t any dentists for most of the existence of homo sapiens.

“But this crucial vitamin that you’ve been missing. Probably since birth!”

The scammer claims he managed to isolate this vitamin and put it into one very effective food… that reached more than 24,000 people worldwide and rebuilt their teeth and gums almost overnight!

No. Pure fantasy from a criminal trying to steal from you.

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March 12, 2022

Time-Wasters Update

“Hi. I saw your site and must tell you it is quite informative and I would welcome the opportunity to contribute guest articles”. At least this spammer is polite though very stupid as the radio station website does not have blog posts or articles. What he actually wants is to advertise sports gambling websites and is looking for reputable sites to put adverts on in return for a reciprocal arrangement. We don’t advertise like that so he’s wasting his time with us.

“Reverse neuropathic pain by squatting in this position for just 3 seconds”. The scammer claims more than 56,917 people have reversed their pain already by doing the exercise. Just simple lies of course – if there was any magic answer then the whole world would know about it rather than scammers trying desperately to get people to watch their pathetic video clip.

“Bedtime ritual torches belly fat”. Is the email subject and it goes on to tell a story about a woman named Liz who reduced her weight by 100 pounds using a special purple drink containing catechins which are a miracle ingredient that targets belly fat and destroys it. This is complete drivel as expected. Catechins are chemicals in certain plants including tea leaves and they have mild anti-oxidant properties but that’s all. No effect on weight and they certainly don’t target belly fat.

An email arrives supposedly from Mrs Linda Andy but her email address is actually bankunitedfinancial @gmail.com which is obviously a personal email address pretending to be something more. Then she claims to be Stephanie Smith and she has $8.5 million for me to give to charity and I keep a generous cut for myself. Pathetic lies.

An email from Frank Slapoffski who claims to work for a Chinese shipping agent and offers to transport our goods to or from China. Just a ridiculous email to check if our email address is valid or not. ‘Slapoffski’ is a good name for a scammer.

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March 11, 2022

The End of Keurboom Communications

Keurboom Communications was created by Gregory Rudd for the purpose of making cold calls – illegally.

He had no interest in respecting people’s wishes not to be cold called, he ignored the Telephone Preference Service and he ignored the law.

As a result, his company was handed the highest ever fine for nuisance calling after more than 1,000 people complained about automated calls.

The calls, made during an 18

month period, including road traffic accident claims and PPI compensation. Some people received repeat calls, even on the same day and during unsociable hours. The company also hid

its identity, making it harder for people to complain.

It is thought the company made up to 99.5 million such calls.

The law says that companies can only make automated marketing calls to people if they have given consent. Keurboom ignored this and called without consideration.

Following the ICO’s investigation, Keurboom Communications Ltd was placed in voluntary liquidation and Gregory Rudd banned for 6 years from being a company director.

How to Block Nuisance Callers

Register with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) then reputable companies will no longer make sales and Marketing calls to your number.
Use your phone to block repeated unwanted callers and caller ID withheld numbers. Some phones allow you to do this and some services such as BT Call Protect enable this.
Use the magic phone number when a website demands your number. (More information at https://fightback.ninja/a-magic-phone-number-and-call-blocking/)

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

March 10, 2022

Investment Opportunities May Not Be What They Seem

You may get cold calls, spam emails, text messages or see adverts – offering a wonderful investment opportunity.

Perhaps it’s cyber currency or gold bars or a business debuting on the stock market or a new building of rented apartments or artwork or almost anything else.

There is a world of investments available – from the stock market to property to fine gems, but these always carry a risk – that’s why there is a reward possible.

Scammers typically offer an investment that is guaranteed and has very high returns and they have some reason why you have to act quickly or miss the opportunity.

Guarantees and high returns are normally impossible with anything legal.

Never trust cold callers or spam emails or unknown people through any other form of contact that you didn’t initiate and never be pushed into making a decision without all of the facts.

If you do want to consider an investment, then make sure to do your research and if possible get expert advice.

Don’t take unnecessary risks.

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

March 9, 2022

How to Use Multiple Email Addresses

There are many reasons why having multiple email addresses can be useful, although it does mean more passwords to remember, more logins to lose track of etc. unless you use a password manager to keep track of them.

First of all, many people have separate business and personal email addresses as using one email address for both could be very confusing. If you work or volunteer for multiple organisations then you may have multiple ‘work’ email addresses.

Your personal email address is probably used for communicating with family, friends, colleagues and numerous people you don’t really know but have some dealings with.

Plus, it’s probably used for social media accounts, online shopping, financial transactions and a myriad of other purposes.

Your personal email address is also a security measure – if you forget your password on a website then it will have a ‘click for forgotten password’ link as people frequently forget passwords and the website will send a message to your email address that lets you create a new password.

This means that if a criminal gets hold of your email password (guessing them is easy for a high percentage of people) then she can change your passwords on multiple websites where you have an account and that can even become identity theft where the criminal can take out loans in your name etc. and you have the difficult task of proving your innocence.

Using one personal email address for financial activities, shopping online, social media, email etc. means only one login and password to worry about but also means that if that one email address and password is gained by scammers then you lose control of all of those things in one go.

You can create one email address for each website etc. but perhaps a more practical answer is to have one email address per type of use e.g. one for purely personal use and one for anything financial and one for social media usage and one for anything else.

People use multiple email addresses for such as:

An address for each business
Each financial activity – banks, credit cards, loan companies etc.
Social media
Registering on sites you suspect may spam you
Registering for downloads where you don’t want to be contacted afterwards
Signing up on any site that will send you Marketing messages

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

March 7, 2022

Would You Be a Paid Consumer Panel Member?

UK Consumer Panels advertise on job boards and elsewhere for work-at-home product testers.

They claim to do research for big companies and to pay people working at home to test the products and write reviews.

It is true that product makers and retailers want reviews of their products, but those are easy to get once the product is available as many people who actually buy it will provide free reviews online at the various websites such as Trustpilot or the product makers website.

However, getting reviews i.e. feedback on a product before it’s on sale is a little more tricky. Where companies pay for product reviews, these are almost always by professional testers not members of the public and the testing is under controlled conditions, not by people sitting at home.

UK Consumer Panels claim “Presently we’re recruiting Product Testers (from home) in most of the United Kingdom regions to expand our private network of In-Home Usage Testers to fulfill upcoming contracts with multinational market research companies. We guarantee 15-20 hours per week with an hourly pay of between £14/hr. And £19/hr., depending on the In-Home Usage Test project. No experience required.”

However, what they actually do is to collect information on people who apply to be product testers then sell that information to marketers, spammers and scammers.

The website states “During your application process we will determine your consumer profile and establish what products would be suitable for you to test according to your demographics, lifestyle, consumer behavior, skills, hobbies and ability. Research questionnaires are used to identify and target certain types of consumers.”

There are reviews on the Internet by people who have tried working for UK Consumer Panels and here are a few examples:

Avoid at all costs!!
Immediately after signing up I received several spam emails and have continued to receive lots of them on a daily basis in the weeks since this. Also several spam phone calls immediately after signing up all in the same day. Complained a couple of times and they lied saying it wasn’t them.
Would give zero stars if possible. Signed up naively thinking this was genuine product testing. Now despite clicking no on all their “offers” my mobile number has still been given to these “companies” aka scammers and I’m being harrassed 24/7 by multiple calls. When I block the numbers I get called again on a number with the same area code but different last numbers and now other numbers outside the area code calling me constantly! Absolute time wasting lunatics
Nothing but a scam and I’m getting silly marketing calls
Get sent offers often, made various attempts to follow through. As soon as it appears you’re near the end, it almost always makes you go through all again as the questionaires are endless. Also majority involve signing up to things to make payments to companies or offer out your details. Odds of actually receiving a product are as good as 0%. This site is purely selling your details on to other companies whilst offering you products that you will not receive. Seriously who would send you an iPad Pro for free?? Why would you test one after they have been available for over 18 months!? Save yourself the disappointment and avoid like the plague!!!
Don’t join! Once you start going for offers they will just bombard you with texts (even when you haven’t agreed to be contacted by 3rd parties etc). They are just data harvesters!

Perhaps applying for the role of product tester at UK Consumer Panels isn’t such a good idea.

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