The Fake Tesla Prize Draw

“We have the pleasure of informing you about being one of our possible winners of the new Tesla Model 3!”

This scammer has gone to more trouble than most – by creating a professional looking email message, complete with suitable picture of a Tesla car, good graphics, correct grammar etc.

The scammer has also managed to spoof his sender’s email address so it appears to be from Tesla, but that’s fake.

The message still contains some standard scammer language, gives itself away as fake and is of course just a scam.

When you buy a lottery ticket, you would be surprised if congratulated on being “one of our possible winners” – that makes no sense.

The message goes on to say we are one of three possible winners and lists our email address along with the other 2 possible winners. That contravenes privacy laws of course – you cannot just publish people’s email addresses without their permission.

To supposedly get into the draw for the car, you have to click the link and answer a set of questions.

This is the point of the scam – the actual questions are irrelevant – it’s the contact details they want about you as your personal details can then be sold to other scammers and identity thieves.

Unsolicited competition entries and prize draws are almost always fake so take care before giving any personal information away.

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

December 26, 2021

Stupidest Scam of the Year 2021

There are so many dumb scams to consider – which is the stupidest of the year?

A. Short messages
e.g. 1 An email with no title and just one line “You have been donated 20,000,000 Euros. Get back to me for how we can proceed”..

e.g. 2 “This is to inform you that your courier service delivery man carrying your consignment box containing an ATM card valued $10Million dollars is now at the Washington Dulles International Airport”

e.g. 3 “More than 12,000 overweight people have been able to supercharge their metabolism by a whopping 470%… All thanks to a popular alcoholic drink.”. Those people would overheat and die if true.

B. Stupid Products

e.g. Cuckoo Clocks described as “Bird goes out with sound every hour. Material: wood”

C. Diabetes Cures

e.g. 1 The Diabetes Pinch. “Learn The secret Pinch Method” – but then claims 190,00 people already use it, so not such a secret really.

e.g. 2 “Grow your own anti-diabetic cells”

D. Magic Answers to Everything

e.g. 1 Pixie Dust. “Add this to your toothpaste to regrow your gums overnight”. “Bubblegum rebuilds your teeth and gums overnight”.

e.g. 2 The Magic letter. make $12,000 every day and transform your life – a new home, your dream car, your dream partner etc.

E. Dead People

e.g. Sadddam Hussein. WBS (World Bank Swiss), which doesn’t exist wants to donate $18.5 million to me from Saddam’s funds at the bank.

F. The CIA

Strangely, scammers like pretending to be the CIA and offering deals or ‘mutually beneficial arrangement’

G. Grants and Donations

e.g. Grant Payment Center. “It has been brought to our notice that you have not been paid your long overdue grant payment by the UN. This is due to some corrupt hoodlums, and some corrupt government officials who try to divert your money into their own private account. We have arranged your payment through…”

H. Wallet Sucking

This one is so bonkers it has its own category. ‘someone’s been sticking a straw down your wallet and sucking up your hard-earned money’.

So, which one is the winner for 2021?

It has to be wallet sucking – totally and utterly stupid, but we expect 2022’s crop of stupid scams to be even more ludicrous.

December 25, 2021

Christmas

December 24, 2021

How To Report An Unsafe Place to The Police Using Streetsafe

If you or someone else are in danger then you may need to call 999. That’s not what Streetsafe is about.

As part of the government’s agenda to tackle violence against women and girls, we are trialling a new online tool called StreetSafe to enable people, particularly women and girls, to report locations where they feel or have felt unsafe and to identify the features on why that location made them feel unsafe.

StreetSafe is also not for reporting crime or incidents.

StreetSafe is a pilot service for anyone to anonymously tell the Police about public places where you have felt or feel unsafe, because of environmental issues, eg street lighting, abandoned buildings or vandalism and/or because of some behaviours, eg being followed or verbally abused.

The focus of the pilot is to identify particular areas and factors that lead to people feeling unsafe and might help offenders either commit or conceal a crime – such as street lighting, abandoned buildings or poorly designed spaces, vandalism, as well as behaviours of individuals or groups of people.

You can report on Streetsafe without needing to give any identity details, so it is anonymous.

Streetsafe asks where you felt unsafe and why. Possible reasons include:

Environmental (related to places/locations) :

Absence of CCTV
Badly lit e.g. poor or no street lighting
Empty buildings or isolated places
Poor street layout e.g. blind spots and hidden areas
Restricted visibility e.g. overgrown bushes and trees, walls
Rundown e.g. derelict buildings, abandoned cars, graffiti, fly-tipping etc.
Signs of drug or alcohol use
Other

Behavioural (related to people) :

Verbal harassment from / by a single stranger
Verbal harassment from / by a group of people
Feeling like you are being followed / have previously been followed
Other forms of harassment

What is StreetSafe?

The data from StreetSafe will be made available to Police and Crime Commissioners and local policing teams to share with local authorities and other stakeholders as part of their community partnerships to have a better understanding of geographical profiles and inform their community safety activities.

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

December 23, 2021

Is That Offer of Household Appliance Insurance Real?

Cold callers are pressuring people into taking out insurance on their growing list of household appliances.

Consumer magazine Which? found in a recent survey of its members that more than a quarter had received these cold calls.

Which? describe the contracts sold as containing “generic wording, giving little detail about what’s actually being paid for and casting doubt on what you’d get if you tried to use your appliance cover”.

Reputable companies will never call you out of the blue asking for payments, so you can guarantee that any cold calling company is bad news and should be avoided.

Some of the most frequently reported messages are:

Your TV / washing machine / boiler insurance is due to be renewed. You are asked to give your bank details and you might be told that you are eligible for a special deal because you have a no claims bonus
Your Sky box needs replaced. You’re asked to provide your bank details so that a new box can be sent out to you
A maintenance payment is due for your TV. The caller might say that court proceedings will be started against you if you don’t pay
You need to renew your plumbing or draining cover

The list is endless, so be aware and do not take at face value anything said by an unexpected caller, even if they know basic information such as your name.

If you want insurance on your appliances then do your research to see what is the best value and only look at companies with a track record of paying up when there is a problem.

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

December 22, 2021

Elsie’s Story of a Romance Scam

Elsie (in Chicago) fell victim to a romance scam – this is where the scammers get to know their victim online then gradually change the relationship to one of taking, until the victim comes to realise what’s happening and ends the relationship.

But, is it that easy to recognise that you’re being scammed?

Elsie lost her husband and didn’t find it easy to move on with her life.

But several years later she wanted to try so she joined Facebook to engage more with people.

She was approached online by Donald who was working on a project in Toronto. He needed to send some work meters in advance of his arrival in Chicago in coming weeks and asked if she would mind accepting a parcel delivery.

She agreed as long as long as it wouldn’t cost her anything.

She received a call telling her that the parcel had been delivery to the depot and she needed to pay $65 to have it released for delivery to her home.

Elsie didn’t like that and refused but after a long story about how common underpayments are, she relented and paid up.

Laster that day another call from the depot to tell her the package contained a lot of cash and did she know anything about this.

She didn’t but now had to pay a further $250 for the package to be released and it could only go to her as it was addressed to her.

She then called Donald and the story gets more complicated but you can see how the scammers are gradually putting more pressure on Elsie and trying to get more and more money by different pretexts.

Donald was supposedly then too sick to travel to Chicago but the package was essential, so he begged her to accept it.

Elsie ended up paying more under the threat of being involved in money laundering if she didn’t and the demands for money kept becoming larger and more insistent.

Elsie ended up stressed and seriously out of pocket before she stopped taking the calls.

Beware, because these romance scammers are very professional in how they operate and they know how to be convincing and even at times threatening.

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