Time-Wasters Update

An email from sendbulk*.com tells me they offer unlimited mass mailings and are happy sending non permission based messages i.e. messages that no-one has agreed to. Disgraceful.

Yet another email warning. This one is from System Administrator to tell me the mailbox is over quota and needs to be upgraded. The message is actually from aniflex.pl and our mail servers are not in Poland so it’s fake.

Tan K. takes a challenging approach to emails. Starting with a complaint that he has been phoning our office and not getting a reply. He is desperate to place an order and wants to pay 50% up front and the rest on delivery. There is an attached file, claimed to be a proforma invoice for us to open. But it’s a compressed file in .arj format and no-one placing an order would do that – only a scammer trying to spread malware in our systems. DELETE.

An email from Jose Gomez to tell me he has a client with a huge amount of money who wants to form an investment partnership with me and that I should send him my phone number if interested. Just a scammer’s way to get people’s names and phone numbers.

A nameless person sent in an email titled ‘New purchase order and 30% deposit’ from a Chinese company. The attachment is supposed to a pro forma invoice and a payment but is in fact an ‘.html’ file, which means it’s a web page – no doubt designed to load malware onto the computer of anyone trusting enough to click on it. No thanks.

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June 18, 2021

The Do Not Disturb Function

Most smart phones have a Do Not Disturb function of some kind. This can be very useful for reducing the number of spam calls you get. When enabled, it mutes all calls, alerts and media sounds but you can set exceptions to that rule.

Android Phones Do Not Disturb

Go to Settings > Sound & Vibration > Do Not Disturb

This gives you the following options:

Turn on Now
Turn on as Scheduled
Allow Exceptions
APP Rules
Hide Visual Notifications

Under Allow Exceptions, you can choose to allow alarms only or customise so that for example repeat callers are OK or calls from specified people or messages from specified people are accepted etc.

Generally it gives you a more peaceful life until you turn it off again.

Apple Phones Do Not Disturb

This behaves in a similar way to on Android.

Go to Settings > Do Not Disturb

When Do Not Disturb is on, a crescent moon icon Do Not Disturb icon will be displayed in the status bar.

If you’ve set an alarm in the Clock app, the alarm will go off even when Do Not Disturb is on.

You can set Do Not Disturb to be on and off according to a schedule. This would for example give you a quiet period each day at the set times.

Under Silence, you can choose to silence calls and notifications at all times or only when the device is locked.

Under Allow Calls From, you can allow calls from everyone, no one, your favourites or specific contact groups stored on your device or iCloud.

If you have any better uses for Do Not Disturb, do let me know, by email.

June 17, 2021

Psychic Scams

Psychics and clairvoyants have been around for a very long time. Some people believe in them but many do not.

Whether real or fake, there are many on the Internet, offering advice and guidance, for a fee.

Scammers see this as an opportunity – they usually claim to know something important about the victim’s future or that they are cursed etc. then reel them in with details gleaned by asking questions, doing online research and so on.

The typical start to this scam is that you receive an email or letter from somebody claiming to be a psychic or clairvoyant. This person claims to have some sort of special insight into your life – something dangerous coming your way, or a great windfall or that you’ve been cursed etc. The psychic claims they can protect or help – for a fee of course. The scam can also start as a fake website advertised heavily or via social media posts.

You may be offered a good luck charm, the secret to enormous wealth, magic potions or winning lottery numbers for a fee.

Do not be convinced by their cold reading techniques or lucky guesses. If you do want to contract a psychic or clairvoyant then find someone local with a good reputation and take care.

June 16, 2021

What is Fleeceware

Fleeceware is the name for APPS that deliver some benefit but charge far too much compared to similar APPS. E.g. a basic flashlight APP for $10 when usually these are free or come pre-installed on your phone.

The problem is not that there is something malicious in these APPS – just that they are ripping people off.

Google and APPLE check all APPS for malware but don’t have such clear rules on value for money as that is a more personal choice. However, APPS that obviously rip people off do get banned by both Google and APPLE.

Usually these Fleeceware APPS have subscription charges or hidden charges or both and people sign up without realising they can get the same thing either free or at a much reduced price.

Sophos, an Internet security firm, found 25 such apps on Google Play that had a combined total of more than 600 million downloads. They also found 30 apps in the iOS App Store that can be considered Fleeceware APPS.

Scammers may choose any high selling APP where they can duplicate basic functionality easily and then con people into the high charges. To improve their ranking, they will also typically create zombie accounts and use those to post outstanding reviews of the APP.

Sometimes there is a free trial period listed on the adverts but the APP insists on payment on first use, or the adverts show a reasonable subscription charge annually but then the APP charges that same amount every month or has In APP charges that cannot be avoided etc.

Once installed, users may think that deleting the APP will stop the recurring charges, but this is often not the case and the charges continue.

Google has announced that it will tighten the rules on how introductory free subscriptions work and other ongoing costs and that cancellation must be simple and actioned by the APP supplier.

Apple’s guidelines for developers explicitly prohibit unreasonable pricing, bait-and-switch subscriptions, and scams. Apple also say that they will reject expensive apps that try to cheat users with irrationally high prices.

How to Avoid Fleeceware

First thing is to only download apps from the Android or APPLE shop and not from elsewhere unless it is guaranteed to be safe.

Before choosing any APP with costs, check around to see if it is the right price and whether there are better options available.

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

June 14, 2021

The Norton Security Scam

Norton supply security software and have a great reputation.

The scam email is a simple attempt to look like an automatic payment has been taken as subscription to Norton products.

The email is from marshalleberhardtqc713 @gmail.com which is obviously a random email address and not Norton.

The message makes little attempt to look genuine – no company logo or address or text copied from genuine Norton messages.

The message is straight forward text rather than using colour, attractive fonts etc. as this is easier for the scammers.

It says that $499.99 has been taken as the subscription charge today.

Strangely it says ‘There is no requirement of any special kind of permit for performing this function and the subscription has been renewed automatically’.

Obviously, there is always a requirement for agreement by the customer to any payments.

Then it says ‘Our sincere hope is that you will renew our services’.

That makes no sense as the message says they have already taken the renewal charge.

The point of the message is to get people worried enough to phone them and complain. No doubt the scammers have a scam call centre setup waiting for such calls and will try to get people’s financial details supposedly in order to refund the charge, but in fact just to steal from them.

Don’t fall for tricks such as this.

If you ever need to query a payment – find the contact details of the company yourself and contact them. Do not trust email addresses, phone numbers etc. in unsolicited emails.

The scam number they use is +1 (800) 796-8784.

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

June 13, 2021

Stupidest Spam of the Week Free Coffee

On the Internet there are endless Marketing templates – for spam emails, ‘landing’ pages on websites, blog posts, articles and everything else to do with Marketing.

This is good in that it spreads knowledge but it’s also bad that a lot of scammers and spammers simply copy these for their own underhand purposes.

A latest spam message arrived at the radio station offering ‘Do you want to receive coffee cups for a whole year”.

There is a very nice picture of a lot of coffee pods and coffee drinks”.

‘We are giving away free coffee…. “

The template is designed to be used by spammers, giving them a supposed valuable giveaway to encourage people to sign up with them.

But the spammer was too dumb to use the template properly.

The From address is meant to be a business email account that sounds vaguely legitimate, but instead shows ‘@syntax error”.

The footer of the message was supposed to show a company address but instead shows “PLACE HERE YOUR COMPANY DETAILS ALONG WITH…”.

It was also supposed to have an Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the message, but that’s missing as well.

Stupidity prevents people from setting up their spam messages correctly but doesn’t stop them from sending out the pointless messages

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