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A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

najaB

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I thought this was supposed to be a thread about scam e-mails and phone calls?
The relevance is in my post #1104 - where someone is apparently perpetuating a SMS scam in the of Jebus.
 
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Cowley

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Well rather than going through and deleting lots of things shall we try and steer this back on topic from here? :)
I’m a bit reluctant to split the religion stuff into a new thread as religious discussions generally don’t end well on the forum. So let’s leave that where it is!

Thanks everyone.
 

johnnychips

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Anybody here getting texts from, allegedly, Hermes, about a package they have tried to deliver, even when they aren’t expecting one. I have just deleted them without even opening them, so I don’t know what it says. Apologies if already covered, it’s rather a big thread!
 

Cowley

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Anybody here getting texts from, allegedly, Hermes, about a package they have tried to deliver, even when they aren’t expecting one. I have just deleted them without even opening them, so I don’t know what it says. Apologies if already covered, it’s rather a big thread!

That one has definitely popped up on here a few times. It is a rather long thread though now that’s for sure!

If it ever becomes possible to catch those behind all of these scams then I think it would be good if they could be shipped off to a remote island somewhere with no means of escape and no access to the internet.
Somewhere off the coast of Norway possibly?
 

Gloster

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That one has definitely popped up on here a few times. It is a rather long thread though now that’s for sure!

If it ever becomes possible to catch those behind all of these scams then I think it would be good if they could be shipped off to a remote island somewhere with no means of escape and no access to the internet.
Somewhere off the coast of Norway possibly?
What have the Norwegians done to deserve that?
 

ChrisC

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This morning I had one of those scam telephone I receive occasionally from a home appliance insurance company informing me that the insurance my washing machine is due to expire shortly.
The lady with an Indian accent began the call quite politely even when I explained to her that my washing machine was quite old and I had never had any insurance for it. She insisted that I had and it was due to expire soon and needed to renew it. Next I asked her if she could confirm what the brand make of my washing machine was. She then replied by saying if I tell you will you renew the cover. When I answered no she very abruptly shouted ‘Then why are you wasting my time’ and immediately hung up. Why was I wasting her time!!!
 

Typhoon

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This morning I had one of those scam telephone I receive occasionally from a home appliance insurance company informing me that the insurance my washing machine is due to expire shortly.
The lady with an Indian accent began the call quite politely even when I explained to her that my washing machine was quite old and I had never had any insurance for it. She insisted that I had and it was due to expire soon and needed to renew it. Next I asked her if she could confirm what the brand make of my washing machine was. She then replied by saying if I tell you will you renew the cover. When I answered no she very abruptly shouted ‘Then why are you wasting my time’ and immediately hung up. Why was I wasting her time!!!
If it is quite old, there must be something wrong with it (even if it just a dent in the metal/ chipped plastic/ distorted powder tray anything). If she calls again, ask her why they haven't fixed the damage, and when are they going to sort it. You won't renew until they do. I doubt you'll hear from them again.
 

contrex

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In the Amazon recorded voice £399.00 scam, have the criminals re-recorded the female American voice to be (a) much louder and (b) much of a harsh and harder tonal type?
I asked the Indian lady why, when they keep calling me, they always say 'Ama-ZON' when we say 'AM-azon' and she just hung up on me. Very rude.

This morning I had one of those scam telephone I receive occasionally from a home appliance insurance company informing me that the insurance my washing machine is due to expire shortly.
When I had one I asked her what the machine brand was. She went quiet for a moment, and said 'Hotpoint'. I made her wait while I pretended to go and look, and I came back and said, "Er, it says 'Zanussi' on the front'. She said a very bad word and hung up.
 

swt_passenger

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When I had one I asked her what the machine brand was. She went quiet for a moment, and said 'Hotpoint'. I made her wait while I pretended to go and look, and I came back and said, "Er, it says 'Zanussi' on the front'. She said a very bad word and hung up.
I just tell them there’s no point in insuring something so cheap. I’ve 40 years experience of buying them without insurance and only just on my 4th machine last year. I wonder how much I could have wasted on washing machine insurance over that time…
 

Trackman

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Just had this today, any ideas?
Is it I reply and bills me £5 or something?
Thing is I’ve had problems with Uber payments but I think that goes out of my debit card. Nothing on my PayPal account says there is a problem.
For people who cannot see the pic, it’s asking me confirm or deny a paypal transaction from someone I’ve never heard of.
 

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najaB

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As far as I remember, texts from PayPal use 'PayPal' as the sender rather than a short code. I'd stay clear of replying.
 

PeterC

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You should be able to find a message like this in the Junk/Spam mail folder I your Email service, and can generally mark an email address or domain as safe to avoid any further Emails from them being marked as spam.

I've just discovered an Email purporting to be from the council elections department that's in my Junk, it looks genuine (the Email sent address is correct and it's sent to the Email address I put on the registration form) but I'm still slightly wary of opening the attachment as it's been flagged by Outlook - anyone got any advice?
No, the emails are not delivered at all.
 

Trackman

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Yep, that's a scam, PayPal texts say 'PayPal' as Naja and that is a premium rate number, I believe.
I've done some digging about now that I'm home and official Paypal say it's a scam with the near enough same wording as my text.
The worrying thing is I googled the number and some sites reckon it's a 'safe' text from Paypal which it isn't.
I wasn't far wrong too, they can charge £5.
There was no way I would reply, but I can a see lot of people being scammed by this.
 

PeterC

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Has the deluge of anti virus emails finally ended or are the scammers simply taking a break? I haven't had a fake anti virus email since Sunday.
More likely the anti-spam software has caught up. Give it a week or two and the spammers will crack the algorithm.
 

AM9

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Got a new text this morning:
"Sorry to tell you that you have to update your account to comply with Law 11/2021: upurlog.com"
 

Master Cutler

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I had a call on my mobile from my bank wanting to confirm recent activity on my debit card.
Before I could discuss my recent transactions they asked me for security details.
I declined to give any details and the person on the phone told me that wasn't a problem, but please could I call the number on my debit card and type in my 16 digit card number to be connected to the bank security.
I did this and all was confirmed as legitimate transactions by me.
Just one point though, I have been advised to always phone back on a different phone in case they have locked their call onto my receiving phone.
So it will be a scam call if they try and convince you they must carry out the security checks immediately and not want you to phone back, therefore it's always best to terminate the call.
 

najaB

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Just one point though, I have been advised to always phone back on a different phone in case they have locked their call onto my receiving phone.
I'm about 99% sure that BT have changed the system so that either party can end the call, certainly this was in play while I worked there. Previously, only the calling party could clear the line.

This isn't an issue on mobile phones.
 
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Just received an email from Amazon claiming that they will not accept UK issued Visa credit cards from January. First thought is that it is a scam, but it does seem to be reported on some news outlets like Reuters, Bloomberg and the Daily Mail. Perhaps this is an attempt by Amazon to reduce outgoings and nothing will come of it with regard to customers. If it is true will Amazon UK accept Amazon Visa cards (assuming issued in the UK). I have several credit cards, all of which of which are presumably issued by a UK bank and are all Visa cards. I will not use a debit card as there is no insurance protection, and my card providers do not supply mastercards. So will I have to get a Mastercard or will this all blow over?
 

najaB

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So will I have to get a Mastercard or will this all blow over?
This was also posted over in the Why Amex? thread. It's apparently a real thing, Amazon are claiming that the fees are too high. I really would be surprised if it actually happens though, 95% of something is more than 100% of nothing.
 

87 027

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I had this email too. I had a look at the mail header and it passed the anti-spoofing checks (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC) so would appear to be genuine

Authentication-Results: spf=pass (sender IP is 54.240.0.34)
smtp.mailfrom=bounces.amazon.co.uk; dkim=pass (signature was verified)
header.d=amazon.co.uk;dmarc=pass action=none
header.from=amazon.co.uk;compauth=pass reason=100
Received-SPF: Pass (protection.outlook.com: domain of bounces.amazon.co.uk
designates 54.240.0.34 as permitted sender)

spf = sender policy framework: checks that an email purporting to come from a domain was authorised by that domain
dkim = domain keys identified mail: digital signature to prove it came from the sender
dmarc = domain based message authentication, reporting and conformance: states what happens if the email is deemed false (best practice is for it to be rejected by the incoming server without hitting the recipient's inbox)

I also got an email from my bank (one of the major High St banks) last month stating that from December 2021 they will be reissuing their debit cards, currently on Visa, as a Mastercard. So it's plausible Visa processing fees are going up to the point that organisations are reconsidering acceptability.
 
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I had that email from my bank as well a few weeks ago. Seems a lot of bother to apply for a new Mastercard, register with Amazon and have another bill to worry about. I have 3 Barclaycards (historical as various other cards were bought up) and it doesn't appear that you can get a Barclays Mastercard.
 

87 027

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For the benefit of less technical readers, DMARC stops scammers from using an official email address (such as hmrc.gov.uk) but it doesn't prevent them using a bogus lookalike that might catch out the unwary (such as online-tax-return-hmrc-uk.com)
 

najaB

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For the benefit of less technical readers, DMARC stops scammers from using an official email address...
If the domain owner has correctly configured their DMARC record (I've lost track of how many malformed/incorrect records I've seen) and the recipient server correctly applies the SPF and DKIM checks.
 

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