Reviewing the scams

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It’s the time of the year when I get spam phone calls as well as the ever-present spam emails and text messages. One I’ve seen lately is the “You paid
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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abbodi86, WCHS, F A Kramer, lmacri, Norio

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We have started to receive emails pretending to be from our email service provider. Examples include:

“The attached message was recently left in your voicemail account for 785874****. We are sending you this email because you have asked for your messages to be forwarded to this address. 

The message then goes on to instruct you to click on the link

PLAY VOICE MESSAGE HERE”

another message reads,

“Dear Subscriber

We are closing all old versions of our Mailbox as of today.

Please follow the link below to update your account :
If you do nothing, you may no longer be able to access your account via your preferred email application and you might lose your important documents.

(Link removed)

Note: Before upgrading your XYZ Mail Account, please ensure that your password is correct.

Regards,”

We forwarded the messages to our email service provider and they got back advising that they would scrub their servers to remove similar messages sent to other email addresses.

Moderator’s Note: Link to dubious site in email body removed.

 

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Thank you for removing the link.

I had not intended to post it.

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Thanks for posting the warning. I’ve been receiving both Paypal and now Venmo phishing emails for a while, and so far (thank goodness) they are obvious frauds. I forward them to “phishing@paypal dot com” or “phishing@venmo dot com”.

just to confuse me though, a kind friend sent me an e-giftcard from something I’d never heard of and I had to go forensic on it before I felt it was legit and I could open it and read it!!

Peter

(“it isn’t paranoia if they really are out to get you”)

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Google added AI to Gmail to fight scams, phishing, malware, etc..

Every year, scammers go into overdrive during the holiday season, using all kinds of tactics to get your attention. ..

This year, we developed several ground-breaking AI models that significantly strengthened Gmail cyber-defenses, including a new large language model (LLM) that we trained on phishing, malware and spam. ..

In particular, there are three scams in heavy use this holiday season:

Invoice scams
Celebrity scams
Extortion scams…

I use Gmail and haven’t seen a fishing, scam… email in my Inbox in years. These are even rare in the spam folder.
I do get from time to time PayPal, post office package… invoice messages on my iPhone.

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I have mentioned this here before, but I think emphasis is still warranted. You can set transaction limits on most credit and debit cards, even set their use as valid in only certain states, and for no international transactions, by using your bank’s website to access your accounts. By having the limits just above my usual per transaction amount, I am protected from attempts to obtain larger amounts by scammers. I can always reset the limits for a short time when necessary. Also, since I only use my debit card about twice a month, and only to withdraw money from my local bank’s ATM, I use the bank’s website for my account to temporarily “disable” the card. Just before going to the bank, I enable the card, get my cash, and then disable it again. A bit of extra effort, but worth the protection. Nuf Sed.

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Yes, it’s not only emails (like Susan’s example). There’s a pernicious text message going around. I got it on Dec 24 and coincidently, I was expecting a package to be delivered USPS. Country code on this one is the Phillipines. Beware!

Does reporting it as junk really stop it from going around??

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pmcjr6142

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WCHS,

Thanks, I just added that to the presentation I’m giving to my retirement community on avoiding scams! It’s a perfect example of they don’t know who you are but yet they can contact you via text? Just shows the best defense from getting scammed it between your ears!

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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WCHS

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And the phone number is a real giveaway. The +63 country code is from the Philippines.

cheers, Paul

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Paul T wrote:

The +63 country code is from the Philippines.

And note the urgency: “confirm (i.e., click on the link) within 24 hours”.

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Simple to identify scam

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This is a first for me! I received a spam/scam notification of a payment I supposedly made without any contact information. What good is that? Usually a message like this would tell you to call this number if you have any questions.

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I’ve received  similar messages without a contact number but they did included a link to click if you had questions.

It “appears” the last sentence was suppose to have such a link but, either it was removed (maybe by your email service provider’s  spam checker) or the spammer was using a template and forgot to include it before sending the message.

 

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PL1

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