Watch Out For Scammers

[Village Idiot]

You beat me to it, great minds think a like

$500 handling fee !!!, I don't plan on touching anyone at that price.

Hooo, boy!! If your mind is as "great" as mine, Mad......................you are in deep, deep trouble!
One "village idiot" is enough, I think: Jim

 

[SarahP]

Rocky,

Congrats on listening to that inner voice! Scammers have gotten so skilled that sometimes it's really hard to tell what's legit and what's not.

The company I work for has started sending out random emails to all of us about...stuff. The subject line might be Changes in per diem filing procedures, Health Care provider lists , Overtime pay rates, etc. Routine work stuff.

The point is that because it's on company email behind two passwords, you feel pretty secure clicking on it. But their point is they want us to hover the mouse on the email and see what the sender's address is. Sure enough, it's always something sketchy like reg6yftksiiye&#@gmail.com rather than our company server. Worse, it usually includes an attachment.

Those two things make me nervous online: emails with attachments and ransomware.

Attachments are troublesome because scammers frequently use social engineering to bypass our usual caution. Your email from the 'Club President' did that -- used someone you knew as a front. If I sent you, Rocky, an email with an attachment and a subject line of: Rocky, check out these photos!, you would most likely open it. We know each other from the Forum, and it's not unreasonable that an email could be exchanged with bike photos or whatever. So if I've attached a Trojan virus in there, it's now in your computer when you tried to open my 'photos.'

And ransomware is why I have both a Carbonite subscription and an iCloud subscription for off-site backups. This article says the ransomware perps are now targeting sections of your computer that would appear to have important, sensitive info, such as folders with a lot of photos (for sentimental reasons) or tax files. And there's absolutely nothing the authorities can do to stop it because the payment is in bitcoin, which is pretty much untraceable. If you have a backup of your laptop/files in the Cloud, you can tell those b@stards to go pound sand.

(Please note that an external hard drive on your desk backing up your computer will probably be affected by ransomware, too. You need a backup not physically connected to your main computer.)

Fie on these blackhearted scammers and digital-age rapscallions!

Fie, I say!

 

[Rocky]

Good post. Thanks

 

[Greyfell]

Last week I received an email purporting to be from Apple customer service to "update my billing information" for iTunes. First, it was sent to an email address I have never used with Apple. Second, the included link would have taken me through Macafee's "community/forum" server. Third, the destination address for the "Apple site" started with simply http://, not https://, so it was sending me to an unsecured page. Fourth, when I went directly to the "Apple site" (by copying/pasting just that portion of the address from the included link), the first thing I did was to find the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page so I might click on it, but it was not clickable.

I then went to the REAL Apple page and contacted their customer service, reported the phishing email and forwarded the email (with full header information included) to Apple so they could pursue the villains.

 

[keystiger]

Where did the BP checker go?????

 

[hemibee]

She's here in Southeast Texas.

 

[Village Idiot]

I'm mailing her some plane tickets to Massachusetts, as we speak.
Jim

 

[hemibee]

Mail service here is a little slow. . . You might have an extra day or two to wait.

 

[Mad On Triumphs]

Oh my God she's here, and what's worse shes taken the make up off.

 

[Rocky]

 

[Village Idiot]

SHE'S ALL YOURS, MAD............ALL YOURS!!
Jim

 

[Mad On Triumphs]

SHE'S ALL YOURS, MAD............ALL YOURS!!
Jim

Oh great so much for friends

 

[Rocky]

Sadly, last evening on the news there was an item about a local elderly lady who struck up an online "friendship" with a man and over a period of several months he fleeced her out of $40,000.00 and she's now destitute and about to be evicted from her apartment.
She is so far behind in bills she may never recover and only has modest government pensions to survive on.
All the signs were there that he was a scammer, but she kept on sending him money
While I feel very sorry for her, you have to start using a little common sense in these situations.
If you're that lonely and crave companionship, get a cat or a dog.
She ruined her own life and she did it to herself.
Sorry to be so harsh, but this makes me so angry to see people victimized!!!!!!

 

[Mad On Triumphs]

The worst part is they never seem to be able to catch the human filth that do this. How these scum of the earth live with themselves is beyond me.

 

[Qship]

That is unfortunate, Rocky. I don't know why they allow themselves to be victimized like that. Ask someone for help or at least seek advice.

 

[Rocky]

I agree Q

I'm not a fan of the Dr. Phil show per se, but once in a while he does a show that is very relevant.
A show this past week was about this very subject - scamming - and he has done a few others too.
A family was there with their elderly mother who, over time, had sent $76,000.00 to a man she fell in love with on the internet in Nigeria.
How you fall in love with someone you have never laid eyes on is beyond me
She wouldn't listen to her family and it took considerable convincing by Dr. Phil that it was all a scam - but she finally did concede.
Shows like this really do a public service if people will only watch and learn.

A few weeks ago he had a medical doctor on who was also being victimized by a scammer in Nigeria and had sent many thousands of dollars to a woman who didn't exist.
He is a well educated man and still couldn't/wouldn't see the light.
If a man with a high level of education lets himself be victimized, then I guess there is no hope for some people

 

[Mad On Triumphs]

Love conquers all, except it would seem to some, stupidity.

 

[Village Idiot]

Don't rule out the beginnings on dementia/Alzheimer's either..............happened to my aunt. Jim

 

[Rocky]

Don't rule out the beginnings on dementia/Alzheimer's either..............happened to my aunt. Jim

Good point

 

[DaveM]

Sadly, last evening on the news there was an item about a local elderly lady who struck up an online "friendship" with a man and over a period of several months he fleeced her out of $40,000.00 and she's now destitute and about to be evicted from her apartment.
She is so far behind in bills she may never recover and only has modest government pensions to survive on.
All the signs were there that he was a scammer, but she kept on sending him money
While I feel very sorry for her, you have to start using a little common sense in these situations.
If you're that lonely and crave companionship, get a cat or a dog.
She ruined her own life and she did it to herself.
Sorry to be so harsh, but this makes me so angry to see people victimized!!!!!!

I suppose when you alone you just get so desperate that even what is so apparent does not sink in, so sad when you here about stories like this one.