New scam to beware of

[R Johns 1Participant @rjohns1]

Chris Gunn – I had similar in that something could not be forwarded. I copied and pasted it to a word document then sent that to the fraud people.

[Chris GunnParticipant @chrisgunn36534]

R Johns, thanks for that, nice to know I am not the only one, I bet there are more out there, i will try and get a more sensible answer about this from the fraud folk, they ought to be aware, as if all the scammers do the same thing, the majority of recipients will not copy and paste, they will not bother if it is not easy to report the scams, and the scammers will win.

Chris Gunn

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

I've had various 'phishing mails' this past week, Bit coin a/c, BT a/c etc, yesterday I got one from the FBI in the USA; stating that I was owed 10.5 million dollars ! so along with Bitcoin saying I have £14,700 in my a/c ( no account by the way ) I'm filthy rich… NOT! .. It's that time of the year I'm afraid, just be vigilant.

George.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Today's mail was from Linked-in. Said my company had sent a group mail which would be very unusual plus I haven't used Linked-in for years. It had a nice helpful link to said mail but the link was sort of plausibly like the company name but with an extra full stop sneeked in. Probably designed to try to catch those who do check the destination but not carefully enough. Our corporate version of email reader has a one click reporting system that then blocks all equivalent mails as they are obviously working through the company address book.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

For weeding out unwanted emails, I've been using Mailwasher for many years now, in conjunction with Thunderbird as my email programme. The preview function easily allows you to see the real URL used in any links.

Not so useful if you prefer to use web-based email services though.

Rob

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Some years ago I went into a local branch of a large home electrical supplier. I bought a small tv, at the check out desk, which at that time was a multi occupancy booth, the chap said the network was down and they would have to do my card manually, ok. Next day had a email check from the fraud department of my bank. Some one had done a £1 transaction then tried to do a larger sum, that s when they contacted me to find them. When I rang they explained what had happened and happily blocked the transactions and sent me a new card. So I could absolutely pinpoint the point of fraud, it hasn’t happened again.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Too frequently, I get E mails, from folk that I know suggesting that I click on a link!

The last one, last week, was from a model engineering friend who died a couple of years ago.

His ghost seemed to have moved to an address ending in "jp"

Another acquaintance seems to have moved to Brazil!

I think not.

All such messages go to Trash and then complete deletion.

Any message tends to get a check of the sender's E mail address. Anything remotely strange is permanently deleted.

I wonder what would happen if I replied offering a job involving sex and travel? Am afraid of the consequences.

Howard

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Just had a call from Jennifer at the Virgin Media tech support about my internet problems, I asked her what my name was & she replied 'f*****g idiot' & slammed the phone down, it did make me chuckle as it shows they must have feelings, no bonus for her today.

Tony

[John BaronParticipant @johnbaron31275]

Hi Guys,

I just do a "Ctrl V" to see the full textual contents of any Email ! I don't know if that works on non Linux machines.

Its surprising what information you can glean about the sender of this junk. A lot actually comes from universities and other educational establishments.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

John
do you mean ctrl U which displays the source of a web page – those of us on older non-web mail systems can readily see the source of emails and the headers which show the true sender. As you point out many non-commercial organisations have too low standards which allow scammers to misuse their system.

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

When a Russian "beauty" says She is in the driveway right now waiting for Me that makes Me afraid to open the curtains. I went and hunkered down in the shop, with the doors tightly locked.She won't pry Me out, the Wife can attest to that.

[John BaronParticipant @johnbaron31275]

Posted by Frances IoM on 09/12/2020 09:40:34:
John
do you mean ctrl U which displays the source of a web page – those of us on older non-web mail systems can readily see the source of emails and the headers which show the true sender. As you point out many non-commercial organisations have too low standards which allow scammers to misuse their system.

Hi Frances,

Ctrl "U" doesn't work on Linux !

I use "Kmail" on which Ctrl "V" displays the full Email as text, nothing gets returned to the sender unless you want it to. Part of the issue is Windows itself. It will automatically return an MDM (Message Disposition Message) you have to very specifically turn it off.

I sometimes ask for one just to see if the recipient has received the message. There are several MDM's that can be asked for.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Had a scam phone call today, we were out but they left a message warning that our internet line was to be terminated in 24 hours as 'they' – whoever they were – had detected a hacking or similar incident on something, perhaps our IP address – who knows – and to contact BT press 5 and other press 9.

Just warning of yet another scam attempt.

Chris

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

John,

Ctrl U works on mine.

Linux Mint Mate v.18.1, Firefox, Thunderbird.

Peter G. Shaw

[John BaronParticipant @johnbaron31275]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 10/12/2020 21:30:56:

John,

Ctrl U works on mine.

Linux Mint Mate v.18.1, Firefox, Thunderbird.

Peter G. Shaw

Hi Peter, Guys,

I am running Q4OS with Trinity desktop, Firefox and Kmail. Qcad for drafting and Libre Office for just about everything else. Though I do use the console for some tasks.

Linux Mint is too much like windows ! Q4OS is Debian based

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Were getting loads of texts from 'npower' demanding that we clear a gas bill. They don't seem to be all that joined up as the supposed account number keeps changing, as well as what they claim we owe. I haven't bought gas of npower for a long time, if it's genuine I've no doubt hey will write to me

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I think npower has joined up with eon and change their name actually Duncan.

I had the equivalent of a friend request from my boss today through Linked-in. When I spoke to him I appologised that I wasn't giveing him the cold shoulder in not accepting and he said that like me he hadn't logged into it for years.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I am running Q4OS with Trinity desktop, Firefox and Kmail. Qcad for drafting and Libre Office for just about everything else. Though I do use the console for some tasks.

Linux Mint is too much like windows ! Q4OS is Debian based

John,

It all gets a bit complicated. My initial foray into Linux involved KDE2 & Suse which I found ok. When I did eventually move over to Linux, Suse was on KDE4 which I could not get on with. KDE3/Trinity was knocking around somewhere but I couldn't find it. In the event, although I do not like Microsoft's various antics over the years, I do like their desktop setup as per W2K & WXP so the fact that Mint with the Mate desktop could be set similar was, to me, a bonus, especially as I do still use a Win32 bit drafting program and a DOS based database system, both of which serve me well and I have no wish to change.

Fairly obviously, I am not an out & out Microsoft hater saying that Windows is Windows and Linux is Linux and never the twain shall meet. I will quite happily mix'n match.

Peter G. Shaw

[JAParticipant @ja]

I keep getting text messages and emails from a scammer, nPower, about installing a smart meter.

More seriously, these organizations are beginning to have directories that match a name to the phone number. I have been ex-directory for over 25 years so it is nothing to do with BT. About 10 to 12 years ago I sort of responded to a number of phone consumers surveys always giving a false name and address. It is these names that are now being used. I should add that these people are so dumb – one name is Micheal Mouse and I once gave the address as Hollywood.

JA

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

We have a Virgin media land line & 99.9 % of the incoming calls are scammers, we are seriously looking at ditching the line.

Tony

[John BaronParticipant @johnbaron31275]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 11/12/2020 11:52:59:

I am running Q4OS with Trinity desktop, Firefox and Kmail. Qcad for drafting and Libre Office for just about everything else. Though I do use the console for some tasks.

Linux Mint is too much like windows ! Q4OS is Debian based

John,

It all gets a bit complicated. My initial foray into Linux involved KDE2 & Suse which I found ok. When I did eventually move over to Linux, Suse was on KDE4 which I could not get on with. KDE3/Trinity was knocking around somewhere but I couldn't find it. In the event, although I do not like Microsoft's various antics over the years, I do like their desktop setup as per W2K & WXP so the fact that Mint with the Mate desktop could be set similar was, to me, a bonus, especially as I do still use a Win32 bit drafting program and a DOS based database system, both of which serve me well and I have no wish to change.

Fairly obviously, I am not an out & out Microsoft hater saying that Windows is Windows and Linux is Linux and never the twain shall meet. I will quite happily mix'n match.

Peter G. Shaw

Hi Peter,

Very much like you, I dropped KDE4 and moved to Trinity. At the time they were basically fixing the bugs in KDE3. A while later I discovered Q4OS with the Trinity desktop and was hooked. Being Debian based and moving away from Debian/KDE4, was a convenient move.

I've used Linux from the days of Yggdrasil Linux, originally bound in a book that my wife bought me as a gift. Those were the times when you had to search the Internet for the drivers and then compile the whole lot to suit your machines hardware. Fun times !

Today its so easy, just download a live CD image, put it on a USB stick or burn a CD and boot from it. It will sort out almost everything for itself, right down to being able to surf the web. And if you run from the CD no issues with malware ! You simply cannot write anything to an already burnt CD. Of course you can then install to your machine if you want to.

So far I've not found anything that I want to do that I cannot on Linux.

I've been told that Microsoft actually write windows software on Unix/Linux !

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Tony

I am in the process of moving all my contact numbers to my mobile phone because even though we are ex directory we are getting more and more scam calls on the landline. There is another reason why I choose to discontinue use of the landline, I have a moderate to severe hearing loss and find it near impossible to hear on the landline but I can just about hear on the mobile. Unfortunately using a mobile in our area is not easy because since COVID it appears that the volume of use on mobiles has escalated with people working from home, buying online and bored children using their mobiles much more. So far I have been able to avoid getting scam calls on the mobile but for how long, who knows, meanwhile the landline phone is virtually unused.
Dave W

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

I've just this minute received one supposedly from Paypal to tell me that their system is changing and to 'Click Here'.

The senders email address included the word 'Paypal, but the rest of the address gave the game away. I've forwarded it to 'Spoof at Paypal'

With most of us using online shopping it pays to be VERY careful.

Brian

[egaParticipant @ega]

Posted by John Baron on 09/12/2020 19:26:14:

[…]

I use "Kmail" on which Ctrl "V" displays the full Email as text, nothing gets returned to the sender unless you want it to. Part of the issue is Windows itself. It will automatically return an MDM (Message Disposition Message) you have to very specifically turn it off.

[…]

John Baron:

I use Thunderbird on my Win 10 PC. Recently, I have been getting occasional emails which appear to be scams. I delete these and mark them as spam on my ISP's webmail site. I assume this is of limited value as the scammers no doubt keep changing their send address.

Presumably, if as you say it is possible to deny the sender any confirmation of receipt this might discourage future scam emails? How do I "turn it off", please?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I had one of the long-silence then lady with distant accent call this morning; the old " I'm from the Technical Department of Microsoft Windows…. your computer has reported many faults… "

I have not had one of them for a long time. Perhaps it's no longer a very efficient claim, by [successes / failures].

I let her read her script for a bit longer, until she quoted my post-code and asked " .. Is that right? "

I replied, " No, Wrong, and I know that you or the people you work for, are criminals trying to scam me. Goodbye. "

Then immediately hung up, before she had chance to do so.

I thought I might prepare my own script, something like,

" I live in Denbigh for a start; and my computer's Ajax OS has the Asquith Security message and phone tracer. "

[Author]

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