[Finance] ******** The Scam Thread *********

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Brovion

In my defence, I was left unsupervised.
NSC Patron
Jul 6, 2003
19,863
Where's the fun it that?
None. I must admit though I've wanted to do what you do, but I'm too scared that in retaliation I'll get even more scam/spam calls. These days I'm the same as @Bombardier: I never answer the phone if I don't recognise the number. If it's important they'll leave a message (and on the landline we can call screen).

We're desperately trying to get my 93 year old father-in-law to do the same. He's old school though and insists on answering every call as it 'might be important'. He's been scammed twice, we think by the same people. At least he's stopped responding to dodgy WhatsApps and now forwards them to us - he nearly got caught by the 'Hey dad I've lost my phone' one. ("Well it sounded like something Chris would do!")
 


Hugo Rune

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Feb 23, 2012
23,669
Brighton
I’m rich!!!!

Time to jack in the job and tell my boss where to stick it!

My Dear Friend,

Greetings to you and your family from my sincere heart.
It might be a surprise to you reading from me again as I had written an earlier mail to you but without response. Presently, I'm in the hospital where I am undergoing treatment for Esophageal Cancer. Today My Doctor told me that I will not live up to 60 days. I am Mrs. Laura Eidenberg, widow to the late Colonel Eidenberg, former deputy defense attaché to the Benin consulate in the Czech Republic. My husband was killed by those who were envious of his position in the same office. Now there is 8, 3 Million Dollars my late husband deposited in a bank overseas.

Before his death he vowed to use his wealth for the orphanages. I have decided to donate this money to an individual, who will utilize it in fulfilment of the last request of my husband. Reply with your full names, phone number, address and occupation. I will give you more details after consideration. You can contact me in this Email : (georgievakristalina2020@gmail.com)

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs.Laura Eidenberg
 


Bombardier

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 22, 2004
871
Hove actually
I’m rich!!!!

Time to jack in the job and tell my boss where to stick it!

My Dear Friend,

Greetings to you and your family from my sincere heart.
It might be a surprise to you reading from me again as I had written an earlier mail to you but without response. Presently, I'm in the hospital where I am undergoing treatment for Esophageal Cancer. Today My Doctor told me that I will not live up to 60 days. I am Mrs. Laura Eidenberg, widow to the late Colonel Eidenberg, former deputy defense attaché to the Benin consulate in the Czech Republic. My husband was killed by those who were envious of his position in the same office. Now there is 8, 3 Million Dollars my late husband deposited in a bank overseas.

Before his death he vowed to use his wealth for the orphanages. I have decided to donate this money to an individual, who will utilize it in fulfilment of the last request of my husband. Reply with your full names, phone number, address and occupation. I will give you more details after consideration. You can contact me in this Email : (georgievakristalina2020@gmail.com)

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs.Laura Eidenberg
My dear friend Hugo, I am an orphan. Kindly donate to me $500,000 to assist me in my work helping others. As you can see I am only taking a fraction of your donation and clearly someone who can be trusted to spend it wisely.
 


thedonkeycentrehalf

Moved back to wear the gloves (again)
Jul 7, 2003
9,340
I’m rich!!!!

Time to jack in the job and tell my boss where to stick it!

My Dear Friend,

Greetings to you and your family from my sincere heart.
It might be a surprise to you reading from me again as I had written an earlier mail to you but without response. Presently, I'm in the hospital where I am undergoing treatment for Esophageal Cancer. Today My Doctor told me that I will not live up to 60 days. I am Mrs. Laura Eidenberg, widow to the late Colonel Eidenberg, former deputy defense attaché to the Benin consulate in the Czech Republic. My husband was killed by those who were envious of his position in the same office. Now there is 8, 3 Million Dollars my late husband deposited in a bank overseas.

Before his death he vowed to use his wealth for the orphanages. I have decided to donate this money to an individual, who will utilize it in fulfilment of the last request of my husband. Reply with your full names, phone number, address and occupation. I will give you more details after consideration. You can contact me in this Email : (georgievakristalina2020@gmail.com)

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs.Laura Eidenberg
Scammers are getting so lazy these days. You'd think that they would at least make a token effort and try to generate an email address that was vaguely close to the name of the person they are pretending to be.
 




Shropshire Seagull

Well-known member
Nov 5, 2004
8,787
Telford
My dear friend Hugo, I am an orphan. Kindly donate to me $500,000 to assist me in my work helping others. As you can see I am only taking a fraction of your donation and clearly someone who can be trusted to spend it wisely.
No, no, give it to me as I'm opening up an orphanage in Nigeria soon and I could put this money to good use ....
 


Wes Tupper

Active member
Feb 27, 2024
116
Scammers are getting so lazy these days. You'd think that they would at least make a token effort and try to generate an email address that was vaguely close to the name of the person they are pretending to be.
On the contrary. They deliberately make the scam as obvious as possible because they want to get to the most gullible and vulnerable people as efficiently as possible. They don’t want to pull in thousands of people who will eventually suss them out. They want to get straight to the handful of people ready to give their personal details away.
 


happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
8,167
Eastbourne
Mrs H got scammed today.
She went to the chemist to pick up some pills and there's a ringgo machine outside. It said you have to download the app so she did a search for "ringgo app" and clicked on the download button. It asked for email to register then asked for CC details which she put in.
It rejected her CC and, as her pills were ready, she binned it off and came home. Meanwhile I got a message from the CC company asking if I recognised the transaction. I rang them and said I didn't and they have rejected a £1 charge on the card and killed her card (sending new one).
When I looked further, the link she followed is a google ad and it says it charges £1 "Activation fee" but at the bottom theres a pre-checked box saying you agree to sign up to [f..k knows what] for £25 a month.
 




thedonkeycentrehalf

Moved back to wear the gloves (again)
Jul 7, 2003
9,340
Mrs H got scammed today.
She went to the chemist to pick up some pills and there's a ringgo machine outside. It said you have to download the app so she did a search for "ringgo app" and clicked on the download button. It asked for email to register then asked for CC details which she put in.
It rejected her CC and, as her pills were ready, she binned it off and came home. Meanwhile I got a message from the CC company asking if I recognised the transaction. I rang them and said I didn't and they have rejected a £1 charge on the card and killed her card (sending new one).
When I looked further, the link she followed is a google ad and it says it charges £1 "Activation fee" but at the bottom theres a pre-checked box saying you agree to sign up to [f..k knows what] for £25 a month.
There seem to be a few parking related scams. The advice used to be to avoid the issue Mrs H had was to use the QR code by the machine but there have been a few instances where the original QR code has either been replaced or has another one stuck by the machine which directs people to a scam site.

It is frustrating as many councils are now going down the app/phone pay option rather than allow a simple card payment which makes people more vulnerable to scammers
 


A mex eyecan

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2011
3,868
There seem to be a few parking related scams. The advice used to be to avoid the issue Mrs H had was to use the QR code by the machine but there have been a few instances where the original QR code has either been replaced or has another one stuck by the machine which directs people to a scam site.

It is frustrating as many councils are now going down the app/phone pay option rather than allow a simple card payment which makes people more vulnerable to scammers
or maybe good old fashioned coins ….
 


Weststander

Well-known member
Aug 25, 2011
69,243
Withdean area




Official Old Man

Uckfield Seagull
Aug 27, 2011
9,095
Brighton
There seem to be a few parking related scams. The advice used to be to avoid the issue Mrs H had was to use the QR code by the machine but there have been a few instances where the original QR code has either been replaced or has another one stuck by the machine which directs people to a scam site.

It is frustrating as many councils are now going down the app/phone pay option rather than allow a simple card payment which makes people more vulnerable to scammers
I had this a few weeks ago.
Visiting Clitheroe (great ale town) and parked the car in a council car park. Only way to pay was via the QR code on the machine.
That evening my bank called to say my card had been used for a fraudulant transaction (call came via app and 100% safe).
I'm now waiting for a parking ticket from council although transaction did go through.
Another problem I'm having now is a You've Been Chosen email. Sainsbury's, Screwfix and many other big names.
Cant put them on the Banned list as they all come from different email addresses.
 


thedonkeycentrehalf

Moved back to wear the gloves (again)
Jul 7, 2003
9,340
I had this a few weeks ago.
Visiting Clitheroe (great ale town) and parked the car in a council car park. Only way to pay was via the QR code on the machine.
That evening my bank called to say my card had been used for a fraudulant transaction (call came via app and 100% safe).
I'm now waiting for a parking ticket from council although transaction did go through.
Another problem I'm having now is a You've Been Chosen email. Sainsbury's, Screwfix and many other big names.
Cant put them on the Banned list as they all come from different email addresses.

I went through a phase of getting those but emails but most were coming from a particular *.io domain so I have blocked those with my email account.
 


rippleman

Well-known member
Oct 18, 2011
4,988
On the contrary. They deliberately make the scam as obvious as possible because they want to get to the most gullible and vulnerable people as efficiently as possible. They don’t want to pull in thousands of people who will eventually suss them out. They want to get straight to the handful of people ready to give their personal details away.
I've heard this one before but I'm really not convinced. Whilst the state sponsored scammers in Russia and China are really good, very sophisticated and dangerous, the west African / Phillipines / Indian sub-continent scammers really arent at all bright. In fact they are pretty dumb.

For my supporting evidence have a look here https://www.419eater.com/ and chuckle away at the suffering some of these scammers have endured at the hands of the scambaiting community. (If you have time I recommend the tale of The Watchtower Apocalyptic Testament or T.W.A.T.)

You can get them to believe any old twaddle if they think they are going to get $$$ out of you
 




BrightonCottager

Well-known member
Sep 30, 2013
2,766
Brighton
I 'bought' a Fred Perry from (I thought) Sports Direct from an Instagram post in early June. The transaction has appeared on my credit card bill as not from Sport Direct, but a company in Singapore. I got email sales confirmation and a shipping confirmation email but unsurprisingly the shirts hasn't arrived.
 


South Stand Bonfire

Who lit that match then?
NSC Patron
Jan 24, 2009
2,524
Shoreham-a-la-mer
I’m rich!!!!

Time to jack in the job and tell my boss where to stick it!

My Dear Friend,

Greetings to you and your family from my sincere heart.
It might be a surprise to you reading from me again as I had written an earlier mail to you but without response. Presently, I'm in the hospital where I am undergoing treatment for Esophageal Cancer. Today My Doctor told me that I will not live up to 60 days. I am Mrs. Laura Eidenberg, widow to the late Colonel Eidenberg, former deputy defense attaché to the Benin consulate in the Czech Republic. My husband was killed by those who were envious of his position in the same office. Now there is 8, 3 Million Dollars my late husband deposited in a bank overseas.

Before his death he vowed to use his wealth for the orphanages. I have decided to donate this money to an individual, who will utilize it in fulfilment of the last request of my husband. Reply with your full names, phone number, address and occupation. I will give you more details after consideration. You can contact me in this Email : (georgievakristalina2020@gmail.com)

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs.Laura Eidenberg
I think you should reply providing details of Crystal Palace’s address saying you have need of some ringfenced money to build a new extension to your premises for the underprivileged of South Croydon and see where it takes you.
 


Weststander

Well-known member
Aug 25, 2011
69,243
Withdean area
I 'bought' a Fred Perry from (I thought) Sports Direct from an Instagram post in early June. The transaction has appeared on my credit card bill as not from Sport Direct, but a company in Singapore. I got email sales confirmation and a shipping confirmation email but unsurprisingly the shirts hasn't arrived.

About 8 years ago I ordered some New Balance trainers online from NB, found from the usual google search engine. Website pages looked absolutely legit.

A few hours later I had a hunch that it was a fraud. It was. They’d created a domain with an additional “uk”, www.newbalanceuk.co.uk. I called my credit card company who repaid the >£100 within a few days. I also contacted New Balance who were very interested, they had a special department dealing with all sorts of online imposters, said they were going to shut it down with speed.

The scammers were based in China.
 


Mileoakman

Well-known member
Aug 11, 2003
1,052
The name gives it away
Just as an aside, I think for once the scammers have actually made a loss trying to do me.

About 8 weeks ago I noticed a charge of £49.99 appearing on my debit card and that the company was someone I vaguely remembered dealing with some time ago. Apparently they had set up a recurring monthly debit for this amount and of course they were impossible to contact.
I contacted my bank and after going through the usual procedures they agreed it was attempted fraud and immediately refunded the £49.99 and cancelled the recurring payment for future amounts.

About 4 days later another £49.99 refund appeared in my account which I'm pretty sure was the banks attempt to reclaim the money from the fraudsters.

Anyway 8 weeks on I'm still £49.99 up on the deal and there's been no attempt to cancel this credit. It's given me an enormous warm feeling that for once the scammers have been outscammed through me and have actually lost out.

Perhaps there is a god after all!
 






happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
8,167
Eastbourne
I've heard this one before but I'm really not convinced. Whilst the state sponsored scammers in Russia and China are really good, very sophisticated and dangerous, the west African / Phillipines / Indian sub-continent scammers really arent at all bright. In fact they are pretty dumb.

For my supporting evidence have a look here https://www.419eater.com/ and chuckle away at the suffering some of these scammers have endured at the hands of the scambaiting community. (If you have time I recommend the tale of The Watchtower Apocalyptic Testament or T.W.A.T.)

You can get them to believe any old twaddle if they think they are going to get $$$ out of you
About 10 years ago I used to be very active on 419eater and actively baited scammers. I had several trophies including getting a bunch of them to send me a flag to my own design (wan't good enough for them to be awarded the Rolexes though) and sent a couple of lads on safari from Lagos to Kumasi (Ghana).
 


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