Post Brexit Scams

Prior to BREXIT, scammers were trying to scam people worried about what would happen, by offering fake government advice, fake government services to help businesses to transition to the new rules etc.

Then they switched to more threatening forms of scam e.g. you are not obeying the rules and must fill in some fake government form or be prosecuted or simply threats about paying fines or else face imprisonment.

Since BREXIT happened most of these scams disappeared but not all of them.

Scammers are sending out text messages and emails telling people they have to confirm their identity i.e. provide personal information / bank details to ‘keep up with EU standards’.

These messages are fake.

The messages contain a link to a website designed to look official and to get that information from you to pass to the scammer.

Some Common Scams

HMRC

Many business scams start with the scammer pretending to be from HMRC.

They may warn of non-compliance with the rules and need you details to confirm or may want you to sign up to some new guidance or want you to register your details with them.

HMRC do contact businesses of course but they never ask for confidential information by email or text message. If in doubt as to whether any messages are real – contact HMRC directly.

Bogus Brexit Investment Schemes

Scammers cold call businesses offering fantastic new schemes for making lots of money from opportunities through Brexit changes.

Cold calls offering investments are always fake.

Phishing / Vishing / Smishing

Phishing, vishing and smishing mean respectively, email fraud, telephone fraud and text message fraud.

Scammers use all three methods to try to get confidential information from you which can then be used by other scammers and in identity theft.

Typically, the scammers pose as government officials, new customers, suppliers, the Police, your bank or any regulatory body etc.

Never give out sensitive information without verifying the caller or texter or email sender and never click on links in unsolicited messages of any kind.

Purchasing Scams

The pandemic has caused chaos in worldwide transport of goods, shortage of shipping containers, shortage of drivers etc. and some scammers are offering special deals to alleviate these problems. The scammers have no real solutions of course – just lies to make money for themselves and leave people in a much worse situation.

Do not enter into commercial arrangements with anyone without having verified that they are a real business and they have a sound track record or you are likely to regret it.

Remember – if a deal looks too good to be true, the chances are that it is.

November 24, 2021

What is Cyber Currency

Cyber currency is a form of digital money i.e. money that exists only in the digital world.

Currencies are a means of exchanging value e.g. I give you a gold coin and in return you give me some food. Coin based currencies switched to being paper based a long time ago to make life simpler. The £5 note in your pocket says … promise to pay the bearer the value of the bill but that has little meaning as we all accept paper currency has value and cannot switch back to using precious metals for all transactions.

Cyber currencies (or crypto currencies) have no paper version, no coins and no promise to pay anything. They exist purely in digital form and have no intrinsic value – only the value assigned by people according to how much supply and demand there is.

They are designed using cryptography i.e. codes which can make transactions tamper proof and ensure each unit of crypto currency cannot be spent more than once.

These currencies started out with very little value or interest except for anyone but people looking to the future when these currencies take over from the traditional. Bitcoin originally was valued at less than 1 cent per coin but in 2021 reached over $60,000 per coin.

Also in 2021, the market capitalisation of all cryptocurrencies was more than $2 trillion. Some people who bought Bitcoin early on, made a fortune.

Stablecoins

These are less well known and are a variation on cryptocurrencies. They were developed to counter the price volatility of regular cryptocurrencies. The value of a Stablecoin is linked to something real world e.g. a standard currency. These are not backed by central banks, unlike the standard currencies. One of the best known is Gemini dollars.

The Benefits of Cryptocurrency:

There is no need for physical storage, safekeeping and shipping complexities
Can eliminate intermediaries and reduce the costs associated with cross-border transfers
Can make it possible to include groups of people who were previously excluded from the economy, by not having a bank account
Cryptocurrency transactions can avoid tracking by government or other authorities

The Danger of Hacking

Cryptocurrency cannot be physically stolen in the way that cash can be, but it can be hacked and exchanges where crypto currrency is traded have been a big target for this.

Criminals Love Bitcoin

As well as possible hacking, criminals love Bitcoin as payment for various illegal activities including ransomware which almost always demands the victim pay in Bitcoin thus making it near impossible to reverse the payment or identify who receives the money.

More recently criminals have changed to preferring Monero for illegal payoffs, but ransomware scammers still demand Bitcoin as its easier for most law abiding citizens to get if they want to pay the ransom.

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

November 22, 2021

1 and 1 Ionos Email Scam

The Internet company 1 & 1 IONOS are a major player in email service, web hosting etc. They claim to be the largest hosting company in Europe.

Scammers know this and repeatedly send out emails trying to con people into keying in their IONOS login and password.

These phishing scams target people with IONOS accounts and they take many forms – the most common being a threat that your email will be discontinued unless you login to confirm your details.

This latest one is claims to be just checking the WHOIS data for your Internet domains. This is the information on domain ownership that is required by the domain registrar.

The registrar does send out such emails to confirm the details, but they always list the information and ask for a return message only if there is a mistake.

The scammers sending these fake messages claiming to be from IONOS do not know whether you own any domains so cannot list such information and the email is general e.g. “we believe you own domains and now have to verify as follows…”

These emails are generally well written, grammatically correct and even have a picture of someone supposed to be head of customer services.

1 and 1 IONOS started out in Germany and for some reason these fake emails have the message in English then repeated in German then pages of adverts for electronics and watches at impossibly low prices.

Weird and all fake.

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

November 21, 2021

Stupidest Spam of the Week Altcoin Predictions

There are endless cryptocurrency scams. Mostly these rely on people’s greed for instant money and play on the reputation of Bitcoin in particular for making millionaires.

Bitcoin has bankrupted many people as well, as the price swings are often violent and unpredictable.

This latest scam also tries to jump on the bandwagon of Artificial Intelligence.

It claims that MIT scientists have an AI that can predict with 100 % accuracy which cryptocurrencies are just about to make a 15,000% increase in price.

Supposedly it has done that previously for the scientists and they made millions.

Now they have more predictions and want to sell them online.

Cryptocurrencies have no physical basis i.e. no assets of any kind or meaning beyond what people give them.

So, the price of cryptocurrencies is entirely a matter of supply and demand. If people want more then the price goes up and if people want less then the price goes down.

Hence, no computer model could ever predict with any certainty what will happen to the price as it would be predicting how people will behave and that’s not going to happen.

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November 20, 2021

Time-Wasters Update

Another fake message arrives claiming an email box is full up and needs to be upgraded. These are simple phishing scams – if you click the link to upgrade it takes you to a fake webpage designed to look like a genuine upgrade page but it takes your email address and password and forwards them to the scammer. The message claims to be from Postmaster but is from purpleparrot.com.cn and strangely complains that the mailbox is just under 2GB but has to be upgraded to 500GB which is an unrealistically big jump but then most scammers are too dumb to understand what it means. A simple phishing scam.

An email from Jonathon tells us thank you for placing an order with them, although there’s no company name to identify who “them” might be. Plus, the email is from a Gmail address not a business email address. This one doesn’t contain a link to click as do almost all scam messages, but it has a telephone number in America that you should call if you have questions about the order (which you haven’t placed). The scammers phone number in this case is +1 833 815-3366 I wont be calling it.

Another approach by scammers is to send messages saying that there are documents waiting for me on the Radio station printer, that 2 people have sent these documents for me and I just need to login in to access them. All lies of course.

Yet another reminder to pay an overdue invoice arrives. It has an attached document so presumably that is full of malware. This one is from smj-ueg1098asf321-2@ lastwinter.net which is obviously a scammer’s email address. Every business receives large numbers of these simple phishing messages so hopefully everyone is used to watching out for them by now. Typical scammer rubbish of course.

There are endless scams based on diabetes cures. Diabetes type II is the scourge of Western society and huge amounts of money are spent trying to treat the disease. Scammers recognise this and that there is no medical cure – only lifestyle changes that many find too difficult. This latest magic remedy is supposedly a simple ingredient made from common beans and one dose in your morning coffee reverses the diabetes domino effect and ‘slashes’ your blood sugar permanently. There is no such ingredient and no such ‘slashing’ effect, just a criminal trying to con people.

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November 19, 2021

Comedian Joe Lycette And The Property Scammer

Joe Lycette is a comedian and he likes to take on scammers, using humour.

One story he tells is about how a property scammer tried to con him, but Joe turned the tables and had a lot of fun in the process.

A friend of Joe’s was looking for a property on Gumtree and was emailing with an agent about a property he was interested in but realised it was probably a scam. His friend passed the emails to Joe

Joe then emailed Gemma the scammer posing as a property agent, saying he was interested in the property.

The agent claimed she was in Stockholm and needed Joe to pay $220 deposit so she could arrange a viewing.

The payment should be via her trusted partner moneytoindia.com

Joe sent her an email claiming he was on holiday in Stockholm and wanted to meet up.

Then the agent claimed she had left and was in Munich.

“Guten tag Frau Gemma – what a co-incidence” he replied “I’m also in Berlin in Potsdamer Platz”,.

So she then claimed to have left Berlin, but still wanted the $220.

Joe then replied that he was happy to forward the money, but a friend of his at the FBI would just do a quick check first to ensure it wasn’t a scam.

Gemma replied quickly –“The property is no longer on the market. Please confirm receipt of this message”

Then another email – “Did you get my last email?”

He got a series of these progressively more desperate messages saying there was no need for an FBI check.

He ignored these for a few days then finally replied.

“In order to secure cancellation of the FBI check you will need to pay me a deposit of $300 through my trusted partner moneytojoe.org. or alternatively promise to stop trying to scam people. “

He actually got an apology and a promise from Gemma.

Joe performs this story very well – you can find him on Youtube.

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