Bitcoin Code Scam

An email titled “Ride the Wave of Bitcoin and Earn $13,000 in Exactly 24 Hours”.

Scammers seem to love Bitcoin, probably because you do see on the news occasionally that the value of Bitcoins has risen sharply. They do go down in value as well but that’s less newsworthy unless someone famous has lost money gambling on Bitcoin.

The email continues

“In the past 90 days, 3 people saw their lives change dramatically after investing in Bitcoin”

Doesn’t say whether their lives changed for the better or for the worse but you are supposed to assume it’s for the better.

Then the email explains a little

“The Bitcoin Code is a group reserved exclusively to people who jump at the chance that Bitcoin offers and have quietly amassed a fortune in doing so”

If it’s exclusive then why are millions of these emails sent out to random unknown people?

It’s just a standard scam – offer lots of money for no effort, but the only people who make money are the scammers.

Do Share this post on social media – click on the post title then scroll down to the social media share buttons.

December 19, 2021

You Won’t Believe The Stupidity Of This Scam About BioPharmaceuticals

Businesses always like to receive messages about co-operation with other companies.

But many such emails are scams of course.

‘Mark’ says he is a research assistant in Research and Development at a leading BioPharmaceutical company in England. He is looking for a reliable business man/woman in my region to represent his company in sourcing the basic raw materials used in manufacture of high quality anti-viral vaccines and cancer treatments.

So, a leading company is asking random unknown people to become their agent in procuring raw materials.

There’s less chance of that being true than of a time-traveller on a skateboard appearing with an almanac of all sports results for the next 5 years.

The scammer must think they are in danger of frightening off any morons reading the message, so the next section tells you they have found a local dealer in raw materials who is much cheaper than the rest and I just need to contact that person.

The scammer doesn’t bother trying to concoct a convincing story of why they cannot talk with the dealer themselves or why any reputable company doesn’t have a whole department of professional procurement specialists doing this job already.

This a stupid scam designed to pick out very gullible people as no-one with more than 4 brain cells would respond to such a message.

The sender’s email address is ecxcelentfacts.com which is classed as a malicious website by the anti-malware companies.

To enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

December 18, 2021

More of Those Terrible Time-Wasters

David Schmitt wants to offer me a business proposal. He’s looking for somewhere to invest his $500 million to ‘ignite my business venture’. Some scammers go for small more reasonable amounts of money but this scammer obviously dreams big. As usual with these messages, the reply email address is different from the sender’s email address and is a personal Gmail account. I wont be replying to such an obvious scam.

An email supposedly from a Sgt Conner but his email address is barbietap which does not match him. He asks if we got his previous email sent from raiiancomnner-ak47 which is obviously a silly email address and does not match his name. The message is in English then repeated in French. Why would anyone but a scammer send such rubbish? No reason. He’s a scammer.

Scammers use lots of methods to get people to watch their videos as they get paid per view. This latest one says that the sender wants to pay us to promote their videos on our website. There is a list of video clips on YouTube for us to watch to ensure they are suitable for our website. This is just lies by a scammer wanting to get people to watch whatever rubbish they are promoting. No chance.

Lead forensics companies offer to identify who’s accessing your website from their anonymous data. That isn’t illegal but people have every right to privacy and it is a disgrace that some people use technology to identify anonymous access just so they can send out their unwanted Marketing. Horrible.

“Nutritionists Got Insane After This Night Weight Loss Trick Was revealed” is the opening gambit by one scammer offering yet another magic trick for instant weight loss. This one claims you will lose 100% more weight during the night but doesn’t say what it’s compared to so is a meaningless claim. But then it’s just a simple scam looking for desperate people and of course there’s a video you have to watch supposedly before Big … takes it down. Pathetic.

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

December 17, 2021

What is The New 159 Anti-Fraud Hotline?

Each year, hundred of millions of pounds are stolen from people by scammers pretending to be from their bank.

In late autumn 2021, a new 159 fraud hotline was created to counter the epidemic of online fraud connected to bank accounts.

On calling 159, the person is put through to their bank’s fraud prevention service who will take the information and deal with the problem.

Anyone who receives a call or message from somebody claiming to be from a trusted organisation and who suggests money should be transferred is being urged to hang up and call 159.

In 2020, criminal gangs stole over £470m by pretending to be the victim’s bank or other service provider.

Call 159 if:

Someone contacts you saying they’re from your bank – even if they do not appear to be suspicious
You receive a call asking you to transfer money or make a payment – even if it seems genuine
You receive a call about a financial matter and it seems suspicious

Remember, 159 will never call you.

Who is behind 159?

159 has been set up by banks and telephone companies who want to fight fraud. It’s a pilot scheme initially and the following banks are part of it: Barclays, Lloyds (including Halifax and Bank of Scotland), NatWest (including Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank), Santander, Starling Bank.

That covers over 70% of UK primary current account holders.

159 is a pilot scheme – the idea is to collect evidence to show that calling 159 helps fight fraud. Then hopefully, 159 can become available on all phones and for all banks.

The new service is being promoted by Stop Scams UK – a coalition of banking and technology companies.

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

December 16, 2021

Are Directory Submission Facilities Worth the Effort?

Online directories used to be a good way to find items of interest on the Internet. But since the search engines became highly efficient, online directories have not been needed for general searching. Search engines are the starting point for most users of the World Wide Web and directories are out of favour.

There are online services that will submit your website listing to hundreds or even thousands of online directories and they make it sound as if it’s the best way to get your website noticed. But search engines pay little attention to directories and few people use them and directories don’t feature much in recommended search engine optimisation for your website, so the value is questionable.

Free and Paid Listings

While most online directories all offer a free listing option, they will try to upsell you to a paid option – this is generally a range packages available for a monthly fee. For example $25 might get you a listing with a logo and a website link, whereas $50 might guarantee you an entry in the top half of their search results page.

A free, basic listing can be useful just for the sake of another return link to your website, but it’s difficult to justify paying for an entry unless it’s a niche directory that is still much used by people searching in that niche. This true for some trade directories that list for example architects or plumbers.

If your entry in a business directory is to your profile on the directory then this is unlikely to help your position in the main search engines as only the secondary link is to your website.

A paid listing will give you more visibility on the directory but probably be no better for the main search engines.

Maybe you know good reasons why business directory listings are worth paying for?

Do leave a comment on this post – click on the post title then scroll down to leave your comment.

December 15, 2021

How to Improve Your TikTok Family Security

As with other popular social media networks, you need to be careful what you put in your TikTok profile, the various privacy settings, who you allow to see your posts and what you choose to post.

Family Safety Mode

TikTok has a Family Safety Mode to let a parent link their TikTok account to their child’s. Once connected, parents can use the Digital Wellbeing features, which include:

Screen Time Management: how long their child can spend on TikTok each day.
Direct Messages:who can send message to their child’s account or turn off direct messages completely.
Restricted Mode:restrict types of content that isn’t appropriate for a child.

TikTok Security Tips for Families with Children

Set Your Child’s Account to Private: On the discoverability page of your child’s TikTok account, set the page to private. This means that people the child doesn’t know won’t be able to read the posts
Set Time Limits: This is part of the “Digital Wellbeing” feature and lets you restrict the total time spent on the APP
Set Restricted Mode: This will block any adult content and should have a password set to avoid anyone but you undoing it.
Set up Family Pairing: This links all of your family’s accounts so you can see the content and communications with your child.
Report Bad Behaviour: Teach your child how to report a user who does something inappropriate or anything considered bullying on TikTok.

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