Scams like these

Had a couple get through yesterday, again somebody wanting me to open up a link from support @ myworkemailaddress; however as I don't have that email address operative, was an easy choice to can it.

I never get any Russian women wanting me - damn it, they must be looking for the age and experience of drron
 
Just for a change (R = South African Rand)

Dear Taxpayer,

After calculations of last year annual fiscal activities,we realised that you are eligible to receive a Tax refund of R9,250.75. please download the attached Tax refund form REFUNDSARS.html and complete the process of your Tax refund. Note:the refund will take 48hours to reflect in your account.

Thank you,

South Africa Revenue Services (SARS)
Tom Moyane Commissioner

Happy wandering (away from attached html)

Fred
 
One this afternoon:

-----Original Message-----
From: Drøpbøx Support≈ [mailto:<redacted email add>]
Sent: Thursday, 3 August 2017 1:26 PM
To: <redacted email address>
Subject: You've (1) new Message Pending!


You've got (1) important document as of August 03, 2017 which is listed belong along with the action that can be taken.


You can view/edit doc by visiting DROPBOX <redacted link>

said:
"Highly Confidential"


Enjoy!
The Dropbox team

Sorry, I'm not that stupid :p
 
Bugger...I first thought it looked like my address had been used for spammers, as I got this email this morning:

-----Original Message-----
From: Casey [email address redacted]
Sent: Friday, 4 August 2017 4:06 AM
To: QF WP <redacted>
Subject: Re: invoice 23533846 bull****

This is too much.I am sorry but i can not agree to this bull****.

Thank you.

Casey (surname redacted>
Phone: <redacted>
Estimating Fax: <redacted>
Main Office Fax: <redacted>

Sent from my iPad Pro

This was in response to my apparent email to them quoted below:

On Mon, July 31, 2017 at 09:26 , <my email redacted> wrote:

You can find the july invoice below:

Invoice 23533846 <spammers website address redacted>

E-mail me the bank confirmation invoice, once you have paid it, at <my email address redacted>
Thank you!

[unsubscribe]unsub[unsubscribe]

I sent an email to my IT guy:

Looks like the spammers are now using my email address to send out emails requesting payment with their embedded links. What can we do - I suspect very little...

Thinking this was from a disgruntled person sick of receiving emails from spammers, I then sent them an email back this morning:

Looks like my email address has been lifted from the web and used as a front for spammers to get unsuspecting people to click on the embedded link in the email (which re-directs to their own website and will no doubt infect those computers with malware). I trust you chose not to click on the link – I get that from the “bull****” comment.

As a financial planner with clients predominately in Australia, I have no need to be invoicing anything to companies in America.

Yes it’s bull**** and frustrating, so thank you for advising as I have my IT people looking at what can be done. I would suggest you do the same – I get very few as my server stops most of them because of tight controls for inbound emails.

Don’t forget, any of our email addresses can be used for their nefarious activities – if only they would use their knowledge for good, rather than evil *sigh*.

Then got an undeliverable message from Office365:

[TABLE="width: 0"][TR][TD]Your message to <redacted email address> couldn't be delivered.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]<name> wasn't found at <company name>.[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 0"][TR][TD]



Now I think I've done the wrong thing - that'll teach me to be nice. I should have checked out the website of the purported emailer. They now may know I am a live email address. Oh well, blocked the senders email address and junked the emails, as well as asking my IT consultant for tighter controls. He replied:

We’ve already set it up so that mail servers should know that your email only comes from particular servers. Unfortunately, not all mail servers honour that so send them to people anyway.

Is there anything else I should do?[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
 
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Got an email from ford australia stating that they owed me money due to charging for roadside assist over the last 5 years which they said was free. Thought it might be a scam but they had a VIN (which I didn't check) and my first name (which was spelt incorrectly, but in a way that happens a lot). The email was sensible enough and seemed like a lot of effort to be a scam so I clicked it.

Turns out it was legit, they have a record of how many times I've had my car serviced and are sending me $95ish in an e-voucher! No details needed to be given to them. Must have been a court case or something.
 
Got an email from ford australia stating that they owed me money due to charging for roadside assist over the last 5 years which they said was free. Thought it might be a scam but they had a VIN (which I didn't check) and my first name (which was spelt incorrectly, but in a way that happens a lot). The email was sensible enough and seemed like a lot of effort to be a scam so I clicked it.

Turns out it was legit, they have a record of how many times I've had my car serviced and are sending me $95ish in an e-voucher! No details needed to be given to them. Must have been a court case or something.

Got one of those as well, I was like you, sceptical at first, makes a nice change!
 
Got one of those as well, I was like you, sceptical at first, makes a nice change!

I also posted in case someone else gets it and thinks the same. Then they can see that we've either all been scammed together, or join in the $15 per service riches ;)
 
[TABLE="width: 0"][TR][TD]
Is there anything else I should do?[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
Confirming your email by replying can lead to greater volumes of SPAM. But the undeliverable msg may mean that action was taken by the ISP against the spam account, and so your reply may not have reached them. Time will tell.

By far the biggest danger is clicking on a spam link in an email, as it exposes you to downloading lots of nasties, followed closely by replying with banking details - which the readers of this Thread would be most unlikely to do.
 
I've blocked "customer-service.at.directdisk.net" many times. Why is email still arriving in junk folder? Isn't that the point of blocking an email address? Don't receive any email from that email address.

I get a variety of spam from them. I'd write to Microsoft but don't think they care about Outlook/Hotmail unless you upgrade to premium version.
 
I've blocked "customer-service.at.directdisk.net" many times. Why is email still arriving in junk folder? Isn't that the point of blocking an email address? Don't receive any email from that email address.

I get a variety of spam from them. I'd write to Microsoft but don't think they care about Outlook/Hotmail unless you upgrade to premium version.

You should talk to someone in IT ;)
 
Well my personal email address (not usually one that I copy emails to here) has finally started to get some different ones:

ATTN:Beneficiary,

I humbly wish to inform you that the Department of Credit & Telex control of the CAPITAL ONE BANK has received an instruction Order to effect the wire transferring of your approved fund of USD10,500,000.00 MILLION to you immediately. I therefore request you to urgently re-confirm the BANK OF AMERICA A/C. number OR full detail for VISA ATM CARD valued USD$10,500,000.00 stated below as your receiving Bank information, since this account was submitted by your lawyer Barrister Wilfried Maxwell of (WILFRIED & LAW CHAMBERS GERMANY) for the payment without any delay.

Note: In a case were you think you are not familiar with the bellow banking information as presented by your legal representative and agent,we advice you send to us now without any delay your detail in full containing your Banking information and other personal information so we dont transfer to wrong account,if not will be left no other option than to remit to the below details as presented by your Lawyer.

1) Your Full Name. Paul Richard Olson..
2) Bank Name & Address Bank of America, 7110 NE Bothell Way, Kenmore, WA, USA.
3) Account Number........... 1381 1901 2576.
4) Routing OR Swift Code...Routing 125000024.

However, it is our principle to initiate direct contact with the beneficiary of fund before final crediting of such fund. Therefore, I am personally contacting you directly in order to seek your approval to remit into the above account. In the meantime, the process of programming and registering of your transfer payment status code that will enable a hitch free wire transferring of your fund into your account within 72hours is in progress and I will be willing to assist you believing that you will in turn show some appreciation to me. Note, I can successfully achieve this transfer within the shortest time from now if only you can offer to us the banking information requested bellow or send us the new banking details.

Now you’re new Payment, Approval No;PUhy7P united States Government No:WHW4CW Reference o.-886002U Allocation No: G74677 Password No: 77937W

Base on this numbers your above states Institutions and Bodies have officially approved this payment valued $10.5M to be remmited without any delay.
(PROVIDE THE BELLOW INFORMATION IF YOU ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE ABOVE BANKING INFORMATION AS PROVIDED BY YOUR LAWYER (WILFRIED & LAW CHAMBERS GERMANY) an dif you prefer VISA ATM as a better option kindly inform us to emable us have card approved.

1) Your Full Name......................................
2) Bank Name & Address..............................
3) Account Number....................................
4) Routing OR Swift Code.............................
5) Marital Status.......................................
6) Your Cell Phone Number............................
7) Your Fax Home Address.............................
8) Your Country.........................................
9) Your Occupation.....................................

Get back to me quickly.
Respectfully!

EMAIL: <redacted> but is a new one for me as it's a .md address - Moldova)

MR MOORE CARRICK
ACCOUNTANT, CAPITAL ONE BANK
 
So I don't feel left out, Svetlana's friends Manilya and Maria has started emailing me as well:

Don�t be surprised.
I do not know how I can start to say this, I'm a girl, who is looking for a soul mate. I�m Manilya, I am 28 y.o. I may tell to you of myself if you are interested. If you are either searching for your soul mate for your life � so I'll be glad to get your picture, and know more about you. I will tell you more, you know I live in the country of Balkan Peninsula. I hope that I am nice to you, and I would be happy to get from you a few words, and you can tell me if you are interested in a long relationship with me.
Have a good day.
Manilya

Hi, I want to find new friends in Australia, because I live here (in Sydney) not so long and haven`t got friends here and therefore I`m single.
If you want to be in contact with me, answer me))). Some information about me: I am Russian, but now live and work in Australia.
I am 28y/o, blondehair and blue eyes. I like travelling, nature and sport. I don`t like lies, betrayal and loneliness.
I`m ready to communicate with people who want to be real friends, real men. Not with people who are looking only for one time meeting or sex.
If you are looking for a life partner too, answer me, I hope we can enjoy our communication.
With best regards, Maria
 
Damn, almost got caught if it wasn't for my spider senses honed from this thread.

Email to my personal email address from GoVia, advising invoice/statement is available for downloading (normal wording). Thankfully I hovered over the email address to see the email address was @goviau.co - not the normal @govia.com.au - plus hovering over the link gave a my.sharepoint.com page not a govia.com.au page :o

Then checked the usual format and noticed GoVia always put "Dear my company name" as addressee and account number underneath, whereas this had "Dear Customer" and no account number.

Plus it was sent to my personal email address - but my GoVia emails go to my company address. Enough of my spider senses tingling to not click.

Bet the downloaded file would have been a .zip file

Reporting it now to GoVia by telephone.
 
Damn, almost got caught if it wasn't for my spider senses honed from this thread.

Email to my personal email address from GoVia, advising invoice/statement is available for downloading (normal wording). Thankfully I hovered over the email address to see the email address was @goviau.co - not the normal @govia.com.au - plus hovering over the link gave a my.sharepoint.com page not a govia.com.au page :o

Then checked the usual format and noticed GoVia always put "Dear my company name" as addressee and account number underneath, whereas this had "Dear Customer" and no account number.

Plus it was sent to my personal email address - but my GoVia emails go to my company address. Enough of my spider senses tingling to not click.

Bet the downloaded file would have been a .zip file

Reporting it now to GoVia by telephone.

Yes we received several emails from this scam today. Short answer is never even click a link from such emails. As you know always login directly to the site independently.

That said, if you use Chrome with Ghostery, Flash Block, AddBlock Plus, TamperMonkey and No Script (light) plus good AV such as Norton and MalwareBytes you will be safe from phising attempts.
 
Good work. Anything impersonal is a definite gotcha, or anything that refers to you by your email address without the @... (i.e. Dear Cynicor...)
 
Ah, I feel blessed - this one is the truth!

I know that you might be surprise on this mail, but I am telling you
the truth. I know that it is against my official duty to release
confidential issue like this to an outsider.There is nothing I can do
to help you beside this; I am taking this bold step because of my
belief as a Christian.

What I want to tell you is about your fund with the Federal Government
of Nigeria, there are a lot forces working against you right from the
last CBN Governor Governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, current Governor Godwin Emefiele,they
have been frustrating you by demanding upfront payment from you constantly,
If I tell you that they are using all these money you sent to them to work
against you, you might not believe it. But it is reality.

There is a way I can assist you get your fund without you paying any
charges to get your fund, it is risk but one have to take it, I have
assisted one woman from Mexico with it, it worked out though her fund
was US$2.5m.What you have to do is to open another bank account any
where if you can open it in another place, it will be nice, but what
you have to bear in mind is that you have to re-transfer the fund to
another account immediately you confirmed it in your account, I know
why I want it this way.

If you want me to go ahead, let me know as soon as you get this
mail,if I make the transfer on this week, it might be next three
months that they will find out and by then, you have re-transferred
the fund into another account. Get back to me as soon as you get this
mail so that I will be in better position to know what to do.

Dr Rapheal Onyema.
KTT UNIT CBN.
 

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