Dumbest scam on the Internet this week

So, what’s the dumbest scam or spam on the Internet this week?

An email with the headline

Get Funeral Planning Advice from a Trusted Source

I’ve never heard of them so why would I trust them?

It continues with a number of very general and fairly meaningless statements such as

“Not all funeral planning advice is equal”. Gee, never thought of that.

My favourite line in the email is “Takes the boo out of Taboo” – sounds like a catchphrase and is not suitable when talking about funerals

The email is from we-just-compare.com so it’s just a Marketing company looking for leads.

There is one testimonial in the email and it says “Thank you WFP for helping us”
Who is WFP? – they are not otherwise mentioned in the email.

Altogether a stupid waste of time

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December 3, 2022

Time-Wasters Update

“Moon Jang” wants to share $21 million with me that is in a dormant account in the bank where he works. He presents me to the bank with fake documents he has prepared and they will hand me all that money to split with the email sender. There are still a lot of these ridiculous 419 scam emails but presumably some people are dumb enough to believe they can get that money. It doesn’t exist of course – just a scam for the unwary.

There seems to be a limitless number of bozos offering website design, SEO services etc. This latest one is from ‘John Goldstone’ and is a reasonably well written offer to do web design. However, the radio station received a dozen such emails – each from a different email address, using exactly the same words but with a different name. That’s a bit of a give away that it’s a scam.

“Your doctor lied to you. Exercise or a healthy diet is not the best way to reverse your diabetes” says the scammer trying to get you to click a link that says ‘Just One handful of this little known fruit…”. All rubbish of course. People should know better than to trust unsolicited emails rather than a medical professional.

“A new contract document has been shared with you on SharePoint storage. Sign in to view encrypted document”. A lot of business use Microsoft SharePoint so will recognise this kind of message. But the radio station this message was sent to doesn’t use SharePoint hence the message is an obvious fake.

“Zuccini, bell pepper, peas, kale …you might be eating this vegetable every day believing it to be super healthy like everyone else does…” Is the opening line of a simple health scam. It goes on to claim one of those four is banned in Europe due to excessive levels of toxin but another of those 4 veggies can cure diabetes. The scammer is either very confused and has mixed up two scams or thinks people are so dumb they will fall form it whatever she puts. Some vegetables do contain small amounts of toxin – that is well known e.g. you have to boil kidney beans to make them safe to eat in large amounts. Pathetic scammers.

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December 2, 2022

BT Stop Callers

BT has a range of services to help you block unwanted callers.

Apart from annoying friends and relatives, most of these calls may be from cold callers i.e. marketing and sales calls from companies you have never dealt with.

There are also the scam callers pretending to be from an organisation you may deal with e.g. claiming to be from BT checking on your line and asking you to confirm your details first.

There are malicious callers and there are time wasters.

Telephone Preference Service

First, you should also ask the company to stop calling you and remove you from their calling list.

If that doesn’t work then register with the Telephone Preference Service. Once registered then you should only receive Marketing calls from companies you have agreed can contact you.

Of course, criminals don’t obey these rules.

You can register with the Telephone Preference Service by signing up for BT Privacy at Home at www.bt.com/callingfeatures. We also offer Caller Display which allows you to see the number of the person who’s calling. BT Privacy at Home and Caller Display are both free. You can sign up to them at www.bt.com/myfeatures.

Scam calls

These are commonly made by scammers pretending to be from BT.

They may ask you for personal information or want access to your computer. Don’t be fooled, this is fraud.

For more information, or to report a scam call, visit www.bt.com/help/home/scams/

Remember

Stay calm and don’t talk to the caller
Don’t give away any personal information or answer the phone with your name or number
Keep your answerphone message short and to the point
Keep note of these calls

If you’re getting abusive, threatening or obscene calls, then you should report them to the police. It will help if you note down the date, time and number that called, along with any other information.

If you’re receiving a lot of malicious calls you can call our Nuisance Call Advice Line on 0800 661 441 (8am to 10pm Monday-Friday and 9am to 6pm on a Saturday).

Calling features that can help:

BT Call Protect – sends nuisance and unwanted calls to a junk voicemail
BT Privacy at Home includes registration to the Telephone Preference Service >
Caller Display – lets you see the number that’s calling you before you answer
BT 1471 – dial 1471 to check the number that last called you
Ex-directory – take your number off the telephone directory

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

November 28, 2022

Christiano Ronaldo scam

Christiano Ronaldo is one of the world’s most famous footballers.

He plays for Manchester United currently although probably not for much longer.

He is paid £26.8 million per year so he’s not exactly short on cash.

The scam is simple.

The scammer sent out mass text messages to random phone numbers, such as

Hello. It’s Christiano Ronaldo using my second account.

Can I borrow your debit card so I can buy some new football boots at Sports Direct.

Is there anyone in the world stupid enough to believe that and send him their payment card details?

Apparently there is.

Unbelievable.

November 28, 2022

Instant Photographer Scam

Photography is one of those things that everyone can do a little and nowadays most of us carry smart phones that include a reasonable quality camera. People upload around 300 million pictures per day to Facebook and around 95 million photos are shared on Instagram every day, almost all from smart phones.

But, being able to take a reasonable picture is a world apart from being a qualified professional photographer.

The scam email starts off with the typical scammers opening warning to catch people’s attention.

“Did you know that pro photographers are FURIOUS about this site?”

Then comes the sales pitch

“WHY?

“Because it shows normal folks like you and me (the underdogs) the true secrets of photography”

“Meaning you can take photos like them without formal training.”

“It’s no wonder guys are saying the site should be banned”

It continues like this for paragraphs.

The email appears to be trying to sell you a video training course and maybe it’s a good training course although the chances are against that as reputable sellers don’t use scammer’s language.

More likely is that the training video (if it exists) is just cheap rubbish put together by a scammer. Once she’s got your money – she won’t care whether you can ever take decent photographs. Don’t waste your money.

Do you have an opinion on this matter? Please comment in the box below.

November 26, 2022

Time-Wasters Update

Mrs Mackenzie Scott tells me she is giving $6,850,000 to me as part of the $4 billion she is currently donating to charity. My name was one of the winners in a poll. The email is addressed to Dear Beneficiary meaning the scammer doesn’t know my name as she simply bought a spam mailing list an sent out this ridiculous email to probably millions of people. Pathetic.

The Fat Diminisher System will give you the truth about weight loss that the weight loss industry is keeping from you. That title is designed for conspiracy nuts and it continues in the same vein “An undercover group of researchers has discovered …” It’s all to get you to click a link that the scammer gets paid to send people to. All pathetic rubbish of course.

A three page email about Jane who was Head of Investment at a bank. She is now 81 years old and is very weak but has decided to spend all of her money on helping people. So, she has $550,000 for me She says she has paid the courier charge for delivery of the money to me but I just have to pay a $1,160 charge for the security keeping of the cheque. I just have to contact the courier company and pay the amount to get my cheque. This is a typical 419 scam but strange as they don’t usually tell you the fees up front – only when the victim is caught in the trap.

The UN Special Envoy emailed to tell me that I am a winner of our compensation payment. The fund is apparently officially approved and ready for pay out. I just have to get back to her for information on how to get the cash. On the other hand, her email address is a personal Gmail one and she doesn’t know my name so it’s all fake.

I have received a series of emails trying to convince me that my subscription with MacAfee anti-virus is running out and I have to re-subscribe. Then the emails changed to saying it has run out and I have been charged £128.88. Rather than an email reply the scammer wants me to phone a London number. I won’t be doing that.

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