Time-Wasters Update

An email claiming to be from Regina Kones but the sender’s address is actually Linda Peters. Scammers do re-use email addresses and automatically create new fake names to go on the emails so this is a common sign of a scam message. The message implores the recipient to reply as she has an urgent sensitive message to pass on. She doesn’t even know the name of the people she’s sending these emails to, so is an obvious scam.

An email from Patrick Sarinafitz. This one is the usual 419 scam. It has a long story about how the EU and USA and United Nations and World Bank have joined forces to create a global fund and lucky me as I’m one of the first recipients of a large sum of money because they have examined my file and determined I am a suitable person. This is all rubbish of course – they don’t even know my name. The email goes on to ask for 12 pieces of personal information, including my name and an ID document. It is sad that this kind of rubbish endlessly circulates on the Internet.

Sales of sunglasses seem to be a popular subject with scammers. A latest one offers Raybans at 90% discount and free postage. Obviously, that means a money loser, but it’s a scam so doesn’t matter. The messages sender’s email address claims to be [email protected] which is a spoofed address to hide the real one. The message claims to be the official Ray-Ban outlet store but in fact the link to click to see the sunglasses goes to 01984422321.com which is a meaningless address. Safest to buy sunglasses in person or from a major retailer – not via a stupid unsolicited email.

An email claims to be an outstanding contract that we need to pay and contains an attached file which is an ‘.xlsx. file i.e. a spreadsheet. Unfortunately spreadsheets can contain malware so it would be stupid to open the file. Plus, we have never heard of the company mytel.com.mm so it’s just a scam.

Mr. Manuel Franco tries to convince me that he has won a billion dollars on the Powerball lottery and wants to give me a miserly $3 million. I should tell him I want half, but of course it’s simple scam to get replies from people with more greed than common sense. Strangely this one wants me to watch a YouTube video for which no doubt he makes money on the number of people who watch it. To be avoided.

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

June 25, 2021

Eight Men Arrested for Royal Mail Text Scam

Royal mail phishing and smishing scams have become even more prevalent during the pandemic as many more people started to buy items online for delivery.

Phishing is where the scammer pretends to be from a trusted organisation such as Royal Mail, in order to get confidential information from the victim. This is usually by email or telephone. Smishing is the name for this when done through text messages.

These eight arrested men used a scam where they sent out floods of text messages to people pretending to be from Royal Mail, telling the recipient that a package was due for delivery but a fee needed to be paid first.

Anyone clicking the link in the text ended up at a fake website which steals their confidential information and passes it to the scammers, who may then be able to empty their accounts.

These eight men were arrested over a large scale smishing operation.

As with many scams, most recipients will know to delete the messages, but when done on a large enough scale, the scammers make money.

Recently, researchers have estimated a more than 600% increase in this type of scam related to Royal Mail.

Police officers from the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) tracked and arrested the eight men following an extensive operation. DCPCU is a specialist unit of the City of London and Metropolitan Police and they conducted a series of early morning raids across London, Coventry, Birmingham and Colchester.

The DCPCU is funded by the banking and cards industry and they managed to recover numerous customers’ financial details, enabling these bank accounts to be protected.

DCI Gary Robinson, who leads the DCPCU, said “The success of these operations shows how through our close collaboration with Royal Mail, the financial services sector, and mobile phone networks, we are cracking down on the criminals ruthlessly targeting the public”.

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

June 24, 2021

Email Address Scrapers

You may wonder how scammers and spammers get your email address.

They have a variety of means – from searching official records to scanning social media posts to simply making them up and then seeing if anyone responds to emails at those addresses.

One method commonly used is scanning websites looking for email addresses, making them into lists and selling them to other scammers and spammers.

One such set of tools are called Email Scrapers or Email Extractors.

A recent message from one operation selling this kind of software tells me:

Our software will enable you to scrape and extract business contact details into an EXCEL spreadsheet
It’s like having a thousand data entry clerks creating information for you
Cut your costs in these difficult times

It isn’t illegal to copy email addresses from websites but it is illegal to send marketing messages to anyone who hasn’t given permission for that.

These services claim to capture only business email addresses but that’s a straightforward lie. The software finds any email address on the searched pages and does not care what is a business address and what isn’t

If you buy these spam lists from such operations, you will end up with a mix of business and personal email addresses plus fake email addresses and dead email addresses.

Plus, sending messages to those addresses is illegal.

Do not do it – it will simply make the recipients hate you for the spammer you are.

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

June 23, 2021

Mis-Sold Car Finance

https://www.missoldcarfinance.com/

Have you been Mis Sold Car Finance? It is estimated that over 10 Million people in the UK have been Mis Sold Car Finance!

That’s the sales pitch for the website and service called “Mis sold Car Finance”.

They say the main areas classed as mis-selling are:-

Customers not made aware of amount of commissions paid to dealer from finance company as a result of the sale of the vehicle.
Putting customers under pressure to accept the deal
Lack of Information on commissions and charges and who actually owns the car etc.
Not offered a comprehensive range of other financial products which may have worked out cheaper.
Low mileage used to estimate annual charges when the seller knows the customer will have to pay more
Mileage charges not relative to the impact on market value or residual value.
Customer is not in a position to make payments throughout the term of agreement.

They say they offer advice freely and do not charge at any time for their services.

They claim to have helped thousands of people to get some or all of their money back.

This does seem like a very useful service for people caught out in car mis selling.

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

June 21, 2021

The Power Saver Device Scam

There are endless adverts for small devices you plug into an electrical socket and can magically reduce your power bills massively.

The adverts often contain numerous testimonials from happy customer who have reduced or even eliminated their electricity bills.

Sometimes there is a supposedly technical explanation of how the device works, including diagrams.

All of this is rubbish.

It is not possible for any plug-in device to somehow reduce the amount of electricity used.

The adverts mention phrases such as ‘dirty electricity, ‘clean your electricity’, ‘sustainable electricity’, ‘power factor’, ‘non-linear loads’ and so on. None of which explain how the devices reduce your electricity usage.

One of the most popular of these scam gadgets is called the Tesla, supposedly after the famous scientist Nikola Tesla who invented it – not true. He did invent industrial electrical supply regulators but they don’t help anyone’s household electricity usage.

Most of these fake devices just plug in to any power socket and somehow magically affect the use of electricity around the whole property.

That’s like putting a water filter on a bathroom tap and expecting the water in the kitchen to also be filtered.

Don’t waste your money.

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

June 20, 2021

Stupidest Spam of the Week Marine Corps

Advance Fee scams, also known as 419 scams are highly prevalent, especially by scammers in Nigeria who operate this scam on an industrial scale.

There are many variations, but it is a simple scam – they offer a fortune of some kind, then when someone falls for the bait, they have an elaborate story about how they have got or will get the money and need just a little help in getting the money out of their country or away from the bank etc.

Once a victim is hooked, then a series of small payments are needed to get the fortune.

Of course, there is no fortune, just a victim who will be conned repeatedly until he or she realises it’s fake and that there is no fortune.

This latest email is a very simple one with no effort to look realistic, but sadly these can still attract some people desperate for money.

The sender claims to be in the U.S. Marine Corps and recently was part of an operation in Asia and netted a lot of money in a raid on the opposition. (You can see this is deliberately vague so the scammer doesn’t have lots of details to remember).

Now, she needs a man or woman to help her repatriate the money and will pay a large percentage for that.

Strangely, this scam also goes down the romance route as she claims to want to find a man to have a long term relationship with.

Confused as that is – that’s all the information in the message.

She asks for a photo by return and wants to talk by Whatsapp only.

This has all the hallmarks of a large scale scam operation with each scammer no doubt dealing with perhaps dozens of victims at a time.

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