Scam emails etc

[Stanfordian]

Almost everyday I get emails purporting to be about my TV Licence.
I block them and report them for phishing and then delete them but they keep coming each with a different email address. There are my last four:

Extend TV-Licensing akari@dance.ne.jp
Extend TV-Licensing staff@tourlinks.jp
Memo Report ITVUK License&Permits Vv service1@hotta-group.co.jp
TV Licensing - 415263255 yamada@haserei.co.jp

Has anyone please got suggestions about stopping these or should I just carry on doing what I am doing?

[french frank]

friendsofradio3@ has received several "Your email account has been hacked". The "proof" is that the scam email is apparently from for3. Then there's a blackmail demand for a large sum in bitcoins to be deposited in a stated account - "or I will publish videos of you (who, exactly?) watching 'adult videos' " .

I forwarded it the first time to Action Fraud NFIBPhishing@city-of-london.pnn.police.uk but haven't bothered with the subsequent ones.

Making a report on the Action Fraud website is a 'civic duty', FWIW: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/re...nd-cyber-crime

I don't know what you can do to block them as the email addreess changes each time.

Almost everyday I get emails purporting to be about my TV Licence.
I block them and report them for phishing and then delete them but they keep coming each with a different email address. There are my last four:

Extend TV-Licensing akari@dance.ne.jp
Extend TV-Licensing staff@tourlinks.jp
Memo Report ITVUK License&Permits Vv service1@hotta-group.co.jp
TV Licensing - 415263255 yamada@haserei.co.jp

Has anyone please got suggestions about stopping these or should I just carry on doing what I am doing?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Has anyone please got suggestions about stopping these or should I just carry on doing what I am doing?

I think that what you're doing is all that can be done, Stanf - short of changing your e-Mail address (? - I don't know if even this would work). If it's any help, I've received these fake e-Mails, too (and "from" Land Registry and several Banks with whom I don't have any accounts). They just go straight to Trash - I take the view that, as I don't do any "official" payments on the Internet, nobody who has any right to ask me for payment would ever do so by e-Mail, and that, if there were ever a real payment due, they would eventually contact me by post, to contact them on a telephone number I already know to be legitimate).

They are flippin' annoying - and, at first, quite scarey.

[johnb]

If you know the emails are not genuine IMO it is best not to open them, depending on how your email client is set up, the emails are likely to contain a pic or an invisible pixel that is downloaded from the server when the email is opened - this tells the scammers that you have opened the email and that it is a valid email address.

For that reason, I've set my email client so that, by default, it treats all emails as plain text - though it will give options to display individual emails as HTML and download pics if required.

I also think that having a pane that automatically displays the contents of all the emails is a very bad idea, for the same reason.

This won't stop scammers - but at least it isn't encouraging them.

[Pulcinella]

Fingers crossed here: I get VERY little spam indeed, maybe one a month.
Whether this is due to excellent filtering higher up the line (icloud email; intego virus checker) I can't say, but surely you can contact your internet service provider and see if they can suggest a way to filter/block these messages?
I agree with the advice already given though: straight into trash without opening and then empty trash folder.
If they really want to contact you they'll find another way!

Good luck.

[Stanfordian]

Thanks very much everyone.

[LMcD]

Fingers crossed here: I get VERY little spam indeed, maybe one a month.
Whether this is due to excellent filtering higher up the line (icloud email; intego virus checker) I can't say, but surely you can contact your internet service provider and see if they can suggest a way to filter/block these messages?
I agree with the advice already given though: straight into trash without opening and then empty trash folder.
If they really want to contact you they'll find another way!

Good luck.

That's what I do - pretty regularly. There is also the option of sending future emails from the same source straight to trash (or bin if you're using Microsoft Edge/Bing).

[Lordgeous]

Yes, get these regularily too. some saying they have videos of me watching Porn (haha, no camera on my MacPro!). Pain in the ass. I always forward them to the anti Phishing guys but I guess there's little they can do. As well as fake bank messages watch out too for fake HMCR emails.

[Stanfordian]

Yes, get these regularily too. some saying they have videos of me watching Porn (haha, no camera on my MacPro!). Pain in the ass. I always forward them to the anti Phishing guys but I guess there's little they can do. As well as fake bank messages watch out too for fake HMCR emails.

Those I receive are not threats for blackmail.

I've received another TV Licence demand this morning. I block them and they resend on another email address.

Although I won't, I feel like replying with the works "F**k off and leave me alone."

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Although I won't, I feel like replying with the works "F**k off and leave me alone."

This is exactly what some of them hope we do - get so annoyed by their "pesturing", that we reply to their e-Mails, which gives them a link into our computers.

Never has a dignified refusal to be provoked been more sensible!

[Stanfordian]

This is exactly what some of them hope we do - get so annoyed by their "pesturing", that we reply to their e-Mails, which gives them a link into our computers.

Never has a dignified refusal to be provoked been more sensible!

Point taken of course.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[french frank]

I've received another TV Licence demand this morning. I block them and they resend on another email address.

I thought that, theoretically , sending them to your junk folder preferably unread was supposed to "train" your email filter to recognise them and dump them in the dustbin before they reach your Inbox. Even if the email address is different.

[Cockney Sparrow]

1. Reporting this to Action Fraud is public spirited but, for me, would be a waste of time. Its just adding to the already considerable scale of the statistics. So far, they have "cracked down" on Spam emailers with huge fines - but- they are outside the UK, so that's irrelevant. No-one would take a moment's interest unless there had been harm or loss(in which case it needs reporting to the police, to add to their stats).

2. If its web email (Yahoo, gmail, outlook.com) and probably any other, its usually possible to redirect emails with subject wording into a specific folder (probably including the trash folder). If I got a lot of spam which included wordings like "TV Licence" "Tax rebate" then I would try cutting them down like that. (I use Yahoo for unimportant mail - given its horrendous security breaches in the past, and outlook.com for more serious e-mail traffic and both of them do quite well sorting this sort of message traffic into the spam folders. I do check the Spam folder from time to time though, as occasionally a message I want to receive ends up there).

[Anastasius]

Those I receive are not threats for blackmail.

I've received another TV Licence demand this morning. I block them and they resend on another email address.

Although I won't, I feel like replying with the works "F**k off and leave me alone."

If you have a Mac then I'd set up a Rule that anything containing TV licence automatically gets deleted.

Or the fact that you are getting so many of these suggests that the old adage of not responding because they'll know yours is an active email address isn't really relevant. So the temptation to respond as you suggest has legs IMO.