More spam/scam emails

[alywin]

This is a question that I asked myself following a scam phone call - admittedly not an email, so not quite on-topic - purporting to be from my bank a couple of years ago.

I began by taking the caller's name and stating that I was very busy but would call back shortly. I did so several minutes later from a different number, using the number that I ususally do when calling my bank and got straight through to the same person. One of her questions related to my passport whose number is one of my bank's agreed security questions; I said that I would have to get the passport as I could not remember it but when returning to the call with it my suspicions were aroused so I asked the caller to tell me instead what she had - and she gave the passport number accurately.

She knew how long I'd been a customer of the bank (more than 30 years) and had ample other security information at her fingertips. She asked me to use my card machine to log in and then I got really suspicious. I said that this didn't work, to which she replied that it must be out of date. She knew when it had been issued and undertook to send out a replacement (which of course never arrived).

I then began to wonder what the purpose of the call was, as it seemed to be becoming ever less clear. At no stage did I give away any security information as she seemed already to have it somehow; she knew my NI, NHS and HMRC reference numbers, my charge and debit card numbers and I can't now recall what else.

I made an excuse and politely terminated the call. Five minutes later I received another call from someone else at my bank. I did the same and called back from another number. This time the call was genuine and it was to advise that someone had just tried to withdraw a sum of a little under £90K from my current account and, of course, the bank rejected it as fraud (not that I had that much in the account anyway). As a consequence, all of my cards had to be closed down and replaced, which caused considerable inconvenience.

It seems that the fraudulent caller had somehow managed to tie the bank's number to both my landline which she'd called and my mobile which I used to call back.

The entire experience was not a pleasant one.

That sounds horrendous - I'm sorry you had to go through that.

I had what must have been a scam phone call the other day: it came through on the ancient dumbphone, which would normally be switched off, but hadn't been for some reason. It was something along the lines of: Was my loft insulation up to standard, or They had my loft insulation down as not being up to standard, or something. It was only when I realised that the phone was so old that it wouldn't be registered to my current address, so I asked which property they had listed, and the guy rang off.

[Serial_Apologist]

Having today received an email purporting to be from the DVLA asking me to provide updated personal details information I am sufficiently wary not even to click on the Gov UK logo at the top. Has anyone else here received similar?

Oh, and a Facebook friend request from somebody calling herself Sam from Singapore which I'm not touching to say yea or nay! I feel like I am being bombarded by scammers!

[Bryn]

Having today received an email purporting to be from the DVLA asking me to provide updated personal details information I am sufficiently wary not even to click on the Gov UK logo at the top. Has anyone else here received similar?

Oh, and a Facebook friend request from somebody calling herself Sam from Singapore which I'm not touching to say yea or nay! I feel like I am being bombarded by scammers!

report@phishing.gov.uk has become a frequently employed forwarding address of late.

[Serial_Apologist]

The latest thing has been several of my Facebook Friends receiving requests from someone posing as me to be Friends. I can't see the purpose, or what is to be done about it. Has anyone else been experiencing this?

[french frank]

The latest thing has been several of my Facebook Friends receiving requests from someone posing as me to be Friends. I can't see the purpose, or what is to be done about it. Has anyone else been experiencing this?

So many of these scammers about some of them must get a bit confused about what they're requesting. Why ask someone to be friends with you if you already are friends? I've largely given up on Facebook now, but I do occasionally have notifications from 'friends' that I'm in some video or another. Video, my eye!

[JasonPalmer]

Noticing soom too good to be true deal adverts on Facebook lately....from my own research these looks like scams to me, i mean, people selling latest laptops for £3 ... really... as if

[Bryn]

The latest thing has been several of my Facebook Friends receiving requests from someone posing as me to be Friends. I can't see the purpose, or what is to be done about it. Has anyone else been experiencing this?

https://www.ricksdailytips.com/beware-duplicate-friend-requests/

[Serial_Apologist]

https://www.ricksdailytips.com/bewar...iend-requests/

Facebook has (have?) emailed me to notify that my alter ego has been reported to them; they say they'll remove their profile if it contravenes their Community Standards and let me know. Thanks to Bryn and to French Frank.

[RichardB]

Here is one I've received many times, with slight variations. I think I've had three of them this week.

Greetings!

Would like to introduce myself - I am a specialized hacker, and have succeeded in hacking your operating system.
At this moment, I have obtained a complete access to account of yours.
On top of that, I was also unnoticeably observing all your activities and spying on you for few past months.
It was possible because your computer was infected with malicious spyware,
which infiltrated your computer while you were visiting a website containing adult videos.

Give me a few minutes to clarify how that affects you.
Because of Trojan viruses, I am now able to have an unrestricted access to your computer as well as any other devices owned by you.
In other words, I can see without any restrictions everything in your screen and even activate the camera together with microphone anytime I want,
and you won't even know about that.
Moreover, I have complete access to confidential data of yours including emails, chat history etc.

You may be rightfully puzzled how come your antivirus is not able to detect the harmful software of mine.
I don't mind explaining that at all: my malicious software is driver-based; hence it refreshes its signatures every 4 hours,
which makes it impossible for your antivirus to identify it.

I have come up with a video exposing the scenes of your passionate masturbation sessions on the left side,
whereas on the right side it shows the dirty videos you were watching during that time. `.`

Trust me, it takes several mouse clicks to distribute this video to your entire email addresses list as well as messenger contacts on your PC or other devices.
Additionally, I can easily share all your emails as well as chat history to public too.

I honestly think you would certainly like to abstain from letting that happen.
There is a solution for you in this case - perform 750 USD transfer in Bitcoin equivalent to Bitcoin account of mine
(it is really not difficult to do, and you can find online the step-by-step guide, if you have no idea about it).

[a bitcoin code follows, which I will omit]

Once the aforementioned amount gets transferred to my account, I will straight away erase all those kinky videos and vanish from your life completely.
Please, settle this payment within 50 hours (2 days).
A notification will be sent to me right after this email gets opened, which will trigger the countdown.

Believe me, I am very cautious, professional and never fail.
If I get to know about you sharing this message with anyone else, I will right away distribute your private videos to public.

Best of luck!

So look out for those videos!

Question: if this person has access to everything on my computer, wouldn't it be easier and safer for them just to empty my bank account without even letting me know?

[oddoneout]

Here is one I've received many times, with slight variations. I think I've had three of them this week.



So look out for those videos!

Question: if this person has access to everything on my computer, wouldn't it be easier and safer for them just to empty my bank account without even letting me know?

Perhaps your bank account wasn't "interesting" enough to be worth touching...

[gradus]

I keep receiving last chance reminders/threats from 'McAfee' to renew my on-line protection but I don't use them.

[Nick Armstrong]

I keep receiving last chance reminders/threats from 'McAfee' to renew my on-line protection but I don't use them.

Yes, they come in daily (direct into the junk mailbox) - pretty transparent/futile as I’ve never had anything to do with McAfee

[RichardB]

Perhaps your bank account wasn't "interesting" enough to be worth touching...

So it was you!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So it was you!

[french frank]

Perhaps your bank account wasn't "interesting" enough to be worth touching...

The forum gets that email regularly. We don't have a bank account, nor do any users ever get solicited for payment. Still those damn emails come in, spying on all our intimate moments