Stupidest Spam of the Week Wallet Sucking

Most scammers try to push people into action by threats and warnings or promises of some kind.

A small number prefer to be mysterious and intriguing – telling you nothing but hoping that the lack of information will make you click the link or reply to the email.

This latest one is titled ‘Retrieve Your Stolen Money Here’.

Then a set of meaningless statements such as below and a photo of a banknote being burnt.

‘It’s not who you think it is’

‘Something big is about to go down’

‘Telling you this will get me into trouble’

Etc.

The imagery used is quite weird e.g. ‘someone’s been sticking a straw down your wallet and sucking up your hard-earned money’.

It’s all to get people to click the link which is likely to be a fake website that will download malware to your computer or maybe to a phishing site after your personal information.

All rubbish of course – never click on links in unsolicited messages.

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May 22, 2021

Time-Wasters Update

There are endless scams on weight loss, because there are so many people desperate to lose weight without having to put in lots of effort. This latest one pictures a woman supposedly named Karen who put on 30 lbs of fat and lost her self confidence but her unnamed doctor had a magic remedy for her. A ten second trick that made her lose 1 Lb of fat every day. Click to learn the secret. There is no secret except for the sender’s real name and address and that’s a secret because it’s all just a scam of course.

Sylvie Lemery sent me an email, but addressed it to unknown recipients so it must be a mass email. It asks me to collaborate with her on an LNG project. She uses a Canadian email address and signs the email off as Mei. It’s just a simple message trying to find out which email addresses on her spam list are actually people dumb enough to reply to a stupid message. She can then sell those email addresses at a higher price or move on to her next stage scam. No thanks. Never reply to such emails.

There are endless scam messages claiming to be from Amazon. This latest one is actually from amaz0n0801.co.uk which is definitely not Amazon. It tells me that my subscription to Amazon Prime will automatically renew unless I click the link to cancel it. A typical phishing email – trying to get me to use my Amazon login and password on their fake website.

Fake messages from 1&1 IONOS are very common. The company provide email services for huge numbers of people and businesses. This latest message claims that according to EU regulations I have to consent to the processing of my personal data, otherwise they will close my account. All of these 1&1 messages are phishing messages – they give a reason why you have to click the link to login and reset something or cancel something or approve something. Doesn’t matter what, as long as they get your login and password so they can steal your email account and that can lead to fraud and identity theft. Never click on links on such messages.

Dr. Mrs Margarita says she is from the United Nations and would like to inform me that my email address was among those listed for Covid 19 Compensation. I am ‘enlisted’ to receive the covid 19 compensation valued at (five Hundred and fifty Thousand Dollars Only). A simple 419 scam as she doesn’t know my name, there is no reason why I would receive such compensation, the United Nations does not give such money and her email address is a Gmailpersonal address whereas the United Nations can afford proper business email addresses for its real employees. Pathetic.

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May 21, 2021

Scamvoid Website Checker

“Use this service to check the online reputation of a website.

Check if a website is a scam, check if a website is legit and trusted by other users”.

Scamvoid at https://www.scamvoid.net/ is a free online security service born in September 2012 that lets users see if a website is known to be a scam site or is safe. So, it’s a simple way to check if a web site is safe before accessing it.

Sadly, there are ever more scam websites ready to steal your personal information, download malware to your device or con you into paying for something you will never get.

Scamvoid is a useful resource to help warn you about dodgy websites.

Scamvoid accesses various online services to check if they have registered the site as containing malware or otherwise to be dangerous. These services include:

Google safe browsing
Spamhaus
Threatlog and
Spam404

The site also offers other services to do with domain name checking, IP addresses, DNS records etc.

A good resource, but you still need to maintain your guard even if services such as Scamvoid say a website is not dangerous.

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

May 19, 2021

OFCOM and Spam Texts

www.ofcom.org.uk

OFCOM is the UK regulator for Television, radio and video sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services and the broadcast frequencies.

A spam text is any Marketing text message sent to your mobile phone where you have not previously given them permission to send the texts and it is illegal for anyone to send you these unsolicited text messages without that permission.

If there is an existing customer relationship between you and the sender, the business can send you text messages about similar products and services, as long as you are given the ability to opt out of receiving such messages.

This law does not cover messages sent to business numbers, so there’s less you can do to stop spam texts to your business.

STOP

If you receive a text message from a sender you are familiar with, or from a shortcode (usually 5 digits long but can be up to 8), reply ‘STOP’ to the sender and that should be last such message.

However, if the text is from someone you don’t recognise then replying with any kind of message might be seen as an invitation to them to keep sending messages to you whether you want them, or not.

Instead, you can report the text to your network operator – forward the text to 7726 (it spells out spam on the keyboard).

Complaining to Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

Making a complaint is simple. You can do it online, by phone or by post, and it is a quick process.

The ICO has powers to investigate any suspected breaches of the regulations, and take enforcement action against any organisation breaching the rules.

You can complain to the ICO as follows:

Phone the helpline on 0303 123 1113

through the ICO website at https://ico.org.uk/

by post: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

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

May 18, 2021

How to Identify a Scam

If you come across a scam – a strange text message from someone you knew years ago or an email about a fortune waiting for you or an official letter you’re not sure about or you wonder if that holiday offer too good to be true – how do you identify whether it’s a scam or not.

If it is a scam, then how does that work and what you should you do if you’ve been scammed or someone tried to con you?

The website at https://identify.fightbackonline.org has the answer for you.

It offers a list of descriptions of scams and you select the one that is the closest match to the one you’ve come across.

It then tells you about how the scam operates and what you should do and can offer further help if needed or a list of recommended experts and more.

Give it a try https://identify.fightbackonline.org

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