Its useful in a community to get the latest on these nasty antics by the Russian and Nigerian scamming types in our world.
Its not limited to email, but there are many many email scams and often you sus them out by seeing them many times in slightly different form. They also seem to come in waves. But some, like how someone left you $10M and the lawyer wants to give it to you, seem to bob up from time to time over the years. These days I rarely see the original Nigerian prince/widow/etc who will give you a share of the $20M of Nigerian Petroleum Company money they want you launder for them. The first time I saw that, it arrived on telex, then on fax, then on email over the years.
One annoying one lately is:
Packer’s latest investment has experts in awe
Dick Smiths latest investment has experts in awe
Andrew Demetriou’s latest investment has experts in awe
…
"famous person’s latest investment has experts in awe.
Or one of your friends is overseas and has lost his passport, wallet and needs money to pay his hotel bill.
One of my employees was recently scammed of $42,000 after he gave his bank details to a PC support company who gained his trust over a period of months.
Someone even tried to hack into this forum recently, by obtaining passwords. There is a thread on this.
Its not limited to email. What about itinerant tradies knocking on doors.
The list goes on, but if you find out about a new one, others on this forum will need to know what is the latest wave of scams the parasites are inflicting on us.
I was wondering if the PMs little speech today was softening us up for an announcement that the Covid-Safe app had been hacked. Not that the info on it is useful to anybody, but it would be a massive political weapon if an external government was unhappy with the Libs.
Why would I reset my Netflix account password, when I dont have one?
But a lot of people do have netflix accounts and might fall for this one.
Probably fairly obvious though.
Just to fill you in on the laptop maintenance scam.
Modus operandi, gain trust, then strike. This might be over a period of weeks months or even years.
The guy that worked for me had trouble with his laptop. so he responded to a net advert for support.
This involved setting up a link and allowing the overseas dude to come onto the laptop via the internet.
This first job was small and completed well and they didn’t charge much.
The next time, months later they said the problem was more difficult, but they could fix it in the same way. They then asked for the guys bank details so they could ensure they got paid.
That mistake cost him $42,000 and he has never been able to get it back.
Someone I know has had her mobile phone number scammed in such a way that her phone keeps ringing itself!! Her own number comes up on the display.
The scammers are probably running some number screening program which, oddly, picks up her number as a disguise. I dont think that scam has been though through properly!!
About the only way she can prevent it is to block her own number… we cant think of another way as it’s impossible to tell who is ringing… Maybe there is some app to download somewhere to counter act this…dunno.
I am not sure if many get the “wangiri” one ring scam, from an overseas number. Rings once or twice then you call them back and pay lots of money which is added to your phone bill while on hold.
Clearly, don’t call them back. For me its always some european country, like serbia once even came from Nigeria itself !
Scam artists now use technology to make a person’s caller ID show their own name and phone number -making it appear as though a person is calling him or herself. These scam artists are falsifying-or “spoofing”-caller ID information. … You should never provide your personal or financial information to unknown callers .
I had a pretty convincing email purporting to be from iiNet asking me to logon to check my internet usage or some such. They helpfully provided a link for this.
When I saw the link led to an offshore site, I called iiNet to report this. The person that eventually answered was totally uninterested and even abusive about me trying to report it. (There was nothing on their website warning about this scam).
General advice that will help you avoid 99% of scams that I used to send to clients and still send to relatives (edit: I didn’t send the scams ffs, I sent the advice)
If you get an email asking you to log in to your account for whatever reason and you’re not sure of it’s authenticity, don’t click the link, just go to the website instead and log in there like you normally would.
If you get a phone call from a “company” asking to verify anything, hang up, look up the actual company number, call them and ask what they need verified.
The third point was always call me if you’re not sure so I can check for you, and I would then tell them that it’s bullsht without actually checking anything.
My wife got hit earlier this year when she was 37 weeks pregnant. She wasn’t in a good way at this point, normally she would be smart enough to know it was a scam very early.
We buy a printer - Canon. Printer manual says to go to a website and install a driver. She tries to enter the website but has a keystroke mistake and so it googled rather than goes to the site. Clicks on first link, which looks exactly like the website it was supposed to be (one letter different or something). Website says that the computer has an error and to call a number for tech support. Blah blah remote access scam you know the rest.
She did twig quite early after the remote access occurred that it was a scam and disconnected, so there was no damage. I still wiped the computer and changed all the bank accounts though…
The organisation I work for employed some new IT security consultant
First thing anyone knew of him, we get an email from “joe [email protected]” saying “click here and enter your network password!”
He’d actually set up some external 3rd party training system, made a module about phishing, and given them everybody’s everyday network login details.
The module - apparently - said “if you don’t recognise the email or it’s an external link asking for your password, report it as phishing”.
Pretty sure I was the only person to report it as phishing.
With the second one, I received a phone call from a number I didn’t recognise. The guy said he was from the ATO and wanted me to confirm my details.
I told him to â– â– â– â– off and that seeing as you called me you should already know my details, then I went on a rant to stop wasting my time.
2 minutes later my accountant called and said the ATO tried to call you because the BAS was lodged but payment was missed.
Why would people allow remote access to their computer to someone they’ve never seen?
I got a scam phonecall who tried to say my internet connection is slow and that he worked with Telstra.
I strung him along until he asked for remote access to my computer.
I said he’s not getting access. I’m fine with my internet connection the way it is, if you want come on site and look at it.
I asked his name and googled him as a check and he said he’d send something through the mail for varification.
He didn’t take my address or any details and my number is a silent number.
Nothing came in the mail and my internet connection has been perfect ever since…
