Common Scams Section

[mickthemaverick]

Interesting!! I have 2 hotmail accounts, one.com and one .co.uk. I get no spam at all on the .com one and a moderate amount - 3-4 a day - on the .co.uk. However I manage it daily and have blocked a fair number of scam addresses which very seldom reoccur. I think it's a case of it's OK if you manage it yourself and don't rely on the spam filters. However I used to have a gmail account which I cancelled through being inundated with junk!! (My third account is via an owned website which is no longer in use but which I maintain at £40 per year simply to have the use of the email server for totally private use!)

[bobins]

Some ISPs are good at blackholing Spam so you never see it, others less so. You'll probably find that most of us get sent lots of spam, but the majority never gets delivered.

[myglaren]

I do check my spam folders as some non-spam messages have been dumped there but on the whole there is very little.

Here's another.



Checked my Hotmail account, first time in about a year. A few bits of Microsoft nonsense and four spammy things.
Got rid of those and then there were another 93 in the inbox, the first ones were highlighted ones.
Mostly from Google, advice on sign-ins on one of my Gmail accounts.
Then another couple of hundred in the spam folder. Curry's advising me that I have won most of their inventory.

[mickthemaverick]

That video does highlight a common scam but one that is automatically avoided if you do as I have done. Within my close family and circle of friends we have a commonly known code phrase which has never been shared electronically only by direct face to face conversation. Thus if any of us are in need of assistance we can contact another member with the phrase included in the call for help. Once it has been used, which has happened three times since I initiated the plan in 2009, we change the phrase with another one and carry on. It is about as secure as we can make it but of course depends on the personal integrity of each member to maintain its secrecy. It may sound elaborate but for the thirteen people in our group it does give an added feeling of security and a guarantee of a response.

[MattBLancs]

That video does highlight a common scam but one that is automatically avoided if you do as I have done. Within my close family and circle of friends we have a commonly known code phrase which has never been shared electronically only by direct face to face conversation. Thus if any of us are in need of assistance we can contact another member with the phrase included in the call for help. Once it has been used, which has happened three times since I initiated the plan in 2009, we change the phrase with another one and carry on. It is about as secure as we can make it but of course depends on the personal integrity of each member to maintain its secrecy. It may sound elaborate but for the thirteen people in our group it does give an added feeling of security and a guarantee of a response.

Like it, gives me visions of the classic two spies having a coded conversation sketch

"The fish in the sea are especially wet this time of year"

**Nod sagely**

"Understood, comrade"

[myglaren]

[mickthemaverick]

Not really a scam this one, more of a con!

SWMBO was doing our weekly shop when she was delighted to discover Walkers have started doing family packs of bags of crisps with 50% less fat:

Own work

"Great" she thought, "they are ideal to go with my packed lunches!"

So she bought them and brought them home. I was curious to see if they had lost any flavour or quality by the reduction in fat so I pinched a bag to go with my pre Grand Prix glass of wine and opened them up. Then I discovered they taste exactly the same as the normal ones because this is how they achieved the 50% less fat in the packet:

Spoiler: show

50% Less Crisps!!!

[Gibbo2286]

Advertisers are clever buggers Mick. , cost of chocolate rising, sell air instead fill the choc bar with bubbles, cost of sugar or mint flavour rising, sell them air instead, the mint with the hole. cost of cod rising advertise your 6oz pack of cod and butter sauce as 'now with more butter.'

[CitroJim]

Cheeky sods Mick!

Got this one in my grotmail the other day...

Looks very convincing at first glance. From a convincing email address...

Except I have no PayPal account under my hotmail address...

Name is a bit dodgy too... That's not how you spell it - ask my dad!

I fear many will have been taken in...

[mickthemaverick]

I think most people know my views on Google and Apple. It makes this text I just received even more amusing:

Apple: Your Apple Pay has been suspended due to suspicious activity, please visit: applepay-recovery.com for more options.

I was thinking of replying with:

Your outgoing SMS service has been suspended due to suspicious messages emanating from your device, please visit 'help is at hand' to resolve this issue.

And then embed a link to the fraud squad in the 'help is at hand' phrase.

[Ross_K]

For those of you who use Gmail when registering for websites, you can add "+something" to the part of the address before the @.

For example if your Gmail address is [email protected], you could sign up for say Aussiefrogs using the email address fcfperson+aussiefrogs@gmail.com

Emails will be delivered to your inbox as normal, and it makes filtering easier. As a bonus it might make it easier to see who sold your email address to a spam email list

[CitroJim]

For those of you who use Gmail when registering for websites, you can add "+something" to the part of the address before the @.

For example if your Gmail address is [email protected], you could sign up for say Aussiefrogs using the email address fcfperson+aussiefrogs@gmail.com

Emails will be delivered to your inbox as normal, and it makes filtering easier. As a bonus it might make it easier to see who sold your email address to a spam email list

That's most interesting and good to know.. Thanks Ross

[MattBLancs]

Cheeky sods Mick!

Got this one in my grotmail the other day...

Looks very convincing at first glance. From a convincing email address...

Except I have no PayPal account under my hotmail address...

Name is a bit dodgy too... That's not how you spell it - ask my dad!

I fear many will have been taken in...

My dad had a similar one recently - the PayPal system seemingly allows anyone to send anyone else on the PayPal system an invoice/ payment request.

Logging into his PayPal account, the request is there and indeed isn't actually any sort of failure of their system (other than a failure to prevent being a communication channel for scammers)

So he had a "request" for £499.99 with a very similar message with an 0800 number to call.

I read online that calling said number puts you through to a "PayPal impersonator" who'll then try and convince you to install their keylogging spyware so they can harvest all your passwords.

So the evil sods have multiple angles to try and fleece folks.

[myglaren]

A terse email purportedly from BT. Just to log in to see important information.

waocon is some Chinese website.
Hovering over the Login button shows en-sol.net, which on a search doesn't open.
Binnerizated.

[myglaren]

A notification of subscription to a film serving service claiming that I subscribed and they will be charging fifty quid a year for it.
Most definitely haven't subscribed.
Went to PayPal to circumvent any such payments and as others have said it is a nightmare contacting them. The chat nonsense just times out ant the option to forward the suspect email to them doesn't work, no 'send' button, that is using my email account.

Have closed my PayPal account.