A quick word of warning.

[saff]

I don't know if anyone else, or perhaps even many on here are getting scam emails which are so freaking plausible.
2 such items of late, one from my mobile phone provider and another from TV licensing, both of which are direct debits.

Ok I'm getting on a bit but still have my marbles (arguably) but both of these emails have had me rocking. Thankfully I did the right thing and contacted the real parties independently of the emails and both confirmed that they were from a 3rd party.

It's so obvious when you hear about others being conned but easy to see how it happens to ordinary people.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted here but would hate anyone here, not least myself to fall for the sculduggery of this vermin. Take care and weigh everything.

Steve

 

[MissyD]

I had one yesterday, a text and said they couldnt take payment so I may incur fees on my mobile phone. I genuinely thought it was real as I'd had a email just yesterday from Dart Charge (from using the Dartford Crossing to go to Gatwick) that payment wasnt taken due to card expiring, which was infact true. Car expired end of June, but as I hadnt used the crossing, it didnt need to top it up so didnt trigger the need to update card. So when I got the mobile phone message, I assumed the same thing had happened. I NEVER click on links in text or emails , I will always go onto the website direct or make a call. I called my mobile provider and there wasnt any issue and asked that I forward the scam text to the fraud people.

Its quite scary really how they are so convincing and Im sure out of the 100's plus they send out, someone will respond.

 

[KennyN]

Prior to opening any new e-mails i always move the cursor over the "from" address to highlight who it is from as it shows the entire senders address.

Most come from - mail(at)irishpeddlarbox.com , which get binned straight away.

Anything that insn`t familiar just gets binned.

Some days i have twice as much junk mail than normal (but still junk) mail.

K

 

[BTB 500]

Apparently younger people are more susceptible to phishing/hoax emails than older ones. My theory is that they're less able to spot the poor spelling / grammar that is usually the first giveaway ... As mentioned always check the actual email address of the sender and the URL of any links - you can normally do this by hovering the mouse pointer/cursor over them.

I'm super-sceptical and this almost cost me > £80 a few months back when I got an email asking me to 'register' in order to be eligible for a refund on a rail ticket. I was on the verge of deleting it but decided to check it out independently via the rail company website and it tuned out to be completely genuine

As an aside we're getting a spate of scam phone calls on our landline at the moment - the usual ones from "BT" and "Microsoft" but also now "Amazon". I block the numbers but they use new ones.

 

[Wagon]

As an aside we're getting a spate of scam phone calls on our landline at the moment - the usual ones from "BT" and "Microsoft" but also now "Amazon". I block the numbers but they use new ones.

I've had a couple this week purporting to be from Sky saying is your broadband is slow , as soon as I asked them what my name was they hung up

 

[Deleted member 37751]

Apparently younger people are more susceptible to phishing/hoax emails than older ones. My theory is that they're less able to spot the poor spelling / grammar that is usually the first giveaway ...

Is that why it’s always old folk on tv programmes who’ve been done over?

 

[saff]

I had one yesterday, a text and said they couldnt take payment so I may incur fees on my mobile phone. I genuinely thought it was real as I'd had a email just yesterday from Dart Charge (from using the Dartford Crossing to go to Gatwick) that payment wasnt taken due to card expiring, which was infact true. Car expired end of June, but as I hadnt used the crossing, it didnt need to top it up so didnt trigger the need to update card. So when I got the mobile phone message, I assumed the same thing had happened. I NEVER click on links in text or emails , I will always go onto the website direct or make a call. I called my mobile provider and there wasnt any issue and asked that I forward the scam text to the fraud people.

Its quite scary really how they are so convincing and Im sure out of the 100's plus they send out, someone will respond.

Likewise my debit card had just been replaced and I'd been updating the likes of Amazon and Paypal with the new card details. This gave even more weight to the veracity of the scam.

 

[PXW]

Likewise my debit card had just been replaced and I'd been updating the likes of Amazon and Paypal with the new card details. This gave even more weight to the veracity of the scam.

I think this is why they do it. Of the thousands they send out, there is likely to be a handful of people whose personal circumstances, change of bank, new card, new broadband supplier etc etc, line up with whatever the scam is, so it sounds plausible, whereas to most recipients it's easily recognisable for what it is and it just gets deleted.

The sneakiest one I've seen was a text purporting to be from Revolut, saying they needed to verify my account. It was sorted by my phone into the thread of genuine text messages from Revolut, and invited me to click on a link that looked exactly like a Revolut login. But, on very close examination of the link, I noticed that there was a tiny cedilla mark under the "o" - otherwise it looked completely genuine. Revolut confirmed it was a scam.