A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

[Bletchleyite]

In my latest batch of “Bank security department” calls they have changed the amount of the mysterious Visa payment - and it’s now a large payment to an “American web site” rather than Amazon etc…

This isn't that surprising as banks' automated fraud confirmation systems do that as well - they tend to read out the category of the merchant rather than its name. Of course "American web site" isn't one of the official categories, but a lot of people aren't going to know that.

 

[dgl]

Though in my case my building society will only ask for a yes or a no reply, no need to go to a website or give any personal details. That's where people should realise it's a scam.

 

[kristiang85]

Yesterday I got a call from "Amazon" where they were saying that there was suspicious activity on my account and someone was buying an iPhone. She asked me to confirm that it wasn't me, and it was outside of my normal purchasing hours (early morning), so I did actually believe it at first, especially as I had another online account compromised recently.

As she was talking I logged in and there was nothing untowards in my order history, then I looked at the phone number and it wasn't from an Amazon number (I use Truecaller which tends to identify companies) but insteard a mobile. So my spidey senses were tingling. Then she said "A 6-digit OTP code has just been sent to your phone, can you read this out to me so we can verify its you?"

I said that I do not give those codes out to anybody, and I will hang up now and call Amazon security if I do see any evidence of a breach, and she hung up before I did.

I reported the number to Truecaller's database.

I can see how easily some people can be taken in though. Needless to say, I've updated all my security settings and passwords to the most stringent.

 

[DelayRepay]

@kristiang85 - did you actually receive an OTP? Because, at the risk of stating the obvious, if you did then whichever account the OTP came from has possibly been compromised, at least partially.

 

[kristiang85]

@kristiang85 - did you actually receive an OTP? Because, at the risk of stating the obvious, if you did then whichever account the OTP came from has possibly been compromised, at least partially.

Yes I did, from Amazon. Hence why I did a thorough security review afterwards.

 

[Steddenm]

I've noticed with Amazon recently if I'm using a different device, or a different IP address, then when I go to pay for something it asks for the full card number again to confirm its me.

 

[swt_passenger]

Just having a look at the spam BT have filtered over the last few weeks, I saw a few relatively low quality invitations to add 50Gb more of free iCloud Drive storage, because my storage is full and about to be deleted. Not seen them before, is it a new one?

One of them even said “enter your credit card details here to get this free offer”…

 

[ABB125]

It's not really a scam, nor is it email-based, but I've recently been having a lot of new followers on Instagram. Except that these followers are what might be described in the adverts on local "news" websites as "hot women who really want to meet you"! The accounts have a link to what appears to be a website where the ladies' services can be procured (not that I've actually clicked!), and nothing else. I wonder if this is related to the recent increase in spam on this forum, which is apparently just a way to increase the prominence of certain websites in search engines?

 

[jb108822]

It's not really a scam, nor is it email-based, but I've recently been having a lot of new followers on Instagram. Except that these followers are what might be described in the adverts on local "news" websites as "hot women who really want to meet you"! The accounts have a link to what appears to be a website where the ladies' services can be procured (not that I've actually clicked!), and nothing else. I wonder if this is related to the recent increase in spam on this forum, which is apparently just a way to increase the prominence of certain websites in search engines?

I've been having a lot of this recently as well. Joke's on the spammers, though - I'm gay!

 

[infobleep]

Another mobile scam call today. Offering me a 3 mobile contract no less. i did interact with them for a time, whilst still trying to work but in the end, I had to let them go and end the call, which I did. I managed to find out at least that they don't deliver to a business address. What a shame! I simply wasn't prepared to have it delivered anywhere else though. And the customer is always right. I would like to have stayed on longer to argue my case but time was of the essence.

Still, despite ending it, it took half 6½ minutes to get to this point. So some of their time waste and I have a recording of it. Perfect result for me in the time available.

 

[ABB125]

(Image shows a scam text to "mum")

Hmmmm...
Something tells me that this is a scam. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following reasons:

• I'm male
• I don't have any children
• The phone number given is formatted the "wrong" way. In the UK it's typically given 07xxx xxxxxx not 07xxxx xxxxx
• No-one I know (apart from myself ) would write a message that is grammatically correct, in the way that this text is. Correct apostrophes AND capitalisation of WhatsApp? Who actually does that?!

I realise that I've just spent 5 minutes analysing a scam message. I really should have something better to do!

 

[Gloster]

The world has come to a pretty pass when the fact that a message contains no spelling mistakes is suspicious. Even if the punctuation is a bit dodgy…or is that text speak?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@ABB125. Have you reported same?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

My nephew was contacted by telephone and said to the caller that they had rung the company of Scam-A-Lot and if they were to press "1" on their computer, a whole lot of viruses would be downloaded onto their computer. The line went dead.

 

[ABB125]

@ABB125. Have you reported same?

I pressed the "report spam" button shown in the screenshot

 

[Typhoon]

View attachment 131970
(Image shows a scam text to "mum")

Hmmmm...
Something tells me that this is a scam. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following reasons:

• I'm male
• I don't have any children
• The phone number given is formatted the "wrong" way. In the UK it's typically given 07xxx xxxxxx not 07xxxx xxxxx
• No-one I know (apart from myself ) would write a message that is grammatically correct, in the way that this text is. Correct apostrophes AND capitalisation of WhatsApp? Who actually does that?!

I realise that I've just spent 5 minutes analysing a scam message. I really should have something better to do!

It is a scam and a fairly common one. 'They' will tell you to delete the old number and use this number instead, they will desperately need money for some reason or other (pay medical bills, for instance), encourage you to speed up payment. 'mum' - maybe they think mums are more likely to be a soft touch than dads (I'm not certain that that is true) - probability recipient is a mother is probably something like 35-40% (guess). They can afford stacks of misses if just one or two bite.

Really unpleasant scam.

 

[najaB]

They can afford stacks of misses if just one or two bite.

Text messages cost around 2p each in bulk. And you're only charged for the ones that are delivered, so for an 'investment' of a few hundred pounds you can get a couple thousand prospective marks.

 

[Purple Train]

View attachment 131970
(Image shows a scam text to "mum")

Hmmmm...
Something tells me that this is a scam. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following reasons:

• I'm male
• I don't have any children
• The phone number given is formatted the "wrong" way. In the UK it's typically given 07xxx xxxxxx not 07xxxx xxxxx
• No-one I know (apart from myself ) would write a message that is grammatically correct, in the way that this text is. Correct apostrophes AND capitalisation of WhatsApp? Who actually does that?!

I realise that I've just spent 5 minutes analysing a scam message. I really should have something better to do!

I capitalise it.
And it's not grammatically correct, there are some missing commas. It's more grammatically correct than my "child's" was, though!

 

[AndrewE]

I capitalise it.
And it's not grammatically correct, there are some missing commas. It's more grammatically correct than my "child's" was, though!

I can't find

my "child's"

anywhere in this thread, but that is correct if it only applies to one of your children, or if you only have one...
"My child's garden is too big for him to manage." What's wrong with that?

 

[Purple Train]

I can't find

anywhere in this thread, but that is correct if it only applies to one of your children, or if you only have one...
"My child's garden is too big for him to manage." What's wrong with that?

I put it in inverted commas because I don't have a child - I was referring to the impostor in the text.

 

[londonbridge]

Not sure what’s changed but I’ve had no messages in my spam email folder for over a week now….

 

[pdeaves]

Not sure what’s changed but I’ve had no messages in my spam email folder for over a week now….

Oh, looks like I'm getting them all instead! (I've seen a recent upsurge in general spam emails).

 

[londonbridge]

Noticed two messages listed in my spam folder this morning but when I had a look they were regular mailing list messages which have been happily going to my inbox for years but which my email provider suddenly thinks are spam for whatever reason. Other than that, still no “proper” spam, all the “redelivery attempt” or “you’ve won an iPhone 14/4KTV/Apple watch” type emails that I mentioned in earlier posts have just vanished without a trace.

 

[Class142sbad]

I've gotten multiple texts like these ones even though I do not have apple pay and don't really order stuff online. All from random numbers that say nothing about the organisation they are from. I did not put the numbers in for privacy sake.

 

[najaB]

View attachment 132527View attachment 132528
I've gotten multiple texts like these ones even though I do not have apple pay and don't really order stuff online. All from random numbers that say nothing about the organisation they are from. I did not put the numbers in for privacy sake.

It's a common trick used by scammers to register domain names that might, at a casual glance, pass for a legit URL.

The fact that this has been made easier is one unintended consequence of opening up the top-level register to more than the traditional six generic top-level and country code domains.

To be honest, I'm surprised the Apple example above wasn't apple-com-id-verify-web.app to better spoof apple.com - maybe a better scammer than them had already registered it.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A screenshot of the 'Simon' spoof message can be forwarded to <[email protected]>

 

[duncanp]

Has anyone had the automated phone call saying that "..we have detected you viewing child pornography on your internet connection. Your broadband is about to be cut off. Press 1 to speak to the police.."?

This is designed to make people panic, because if the police really suspected you of viewing illegal material online, the first you would know about it would be when they knocked on your door.

A similar scam call is someone pretending to be HMRC, saying you owe a lot of money in unpaid taxes and will be prosecuted if you don't pay up soon.

 

[yorksrob]

I saw on the news today that Labour have announced a policy to ban (and technically prevent) callers from abroad from spoofing UK numbers (apparently this is something that Germany and Finland already do).

Definitely a step forward if it goes ahead.

 

[MotCO]

I saw on the news today that Labour have announced a policy to ban (and technically prevent) callers from abroad from spoofing UK numbers (apparently this is something that Germany and Finland already do).

Definitely a step forward if it goes ahead.

Why do you need a policy for this? Surely the mobile phone providers should just do this.

 

[Intercity110]

Why do you need a policy for this? Surely the mobile phone providers should just do this.

A policy is a votewinner, a memo out to OfCOM isn’t, i suppose. ( and a policy makes it mandatory that they have to do such a thing)