I got a wierd email this morning

[Sandyn]

Lol. that is the problem with a site like that, but in this case, it's a genuine site and well known, but you just never know what they do with your address!!.
It's been on the go for 7 years, so if it was up to anything dodgy it would have been found out by now.

"" As of June 2019, Have I Been Pwned? averages around one hundred and sixty thousand daily visitors, the site has nearly three million active email subscribers and contains records of almost eight billion accounts.""
But those eight billion are the lists of hacked accounts.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Thats me trying to let you know, I know you're not my SS as I cut my finger on a sharp bit sticking out the box

... Unless it is someone calling about a missing skip as they have a similar number, 1 digit different

I did actually send something for S/S THAT WASN'T SHARP! Not to you, though. The recipient is more than capable of sharpening it.

MY grandmother years ago had a phone number similar to the local doctor. Hers ended 432 and his 423. She used to get calls at all hours (when she had a seriously ill bedridden husband) and was tired and teasy. Doctor ... I don't know what to do. My wife's fallen down the stairs and I think she's broken both legs. She's screaming in agony! Oh, tell her to shut up and take two aspirin. We used to tell her to change her number. Why should I was the reply, I had mine before he had his.

 

[Dabop]

Most of those phone calls that appear 'localish' to you are usually a Skype or similar 'internet phone service' providers local gates

And just because your number isn't listed or is on the DNC list, doesnt make any difference, most of these use automated robocallers that simply start at xxx0000 and work their way up to xxx9999
It is always worthwhile having a free online email address specifically for using on unknown sites- I have a yahoo account (had it over two decades now, wow) and it gives me the option of using a 'throwaway' email address that only remains active for (I think) 24 hrs, might be 48

 

[clogs]

strange emails just get binned...unopened ......if it's important they will get back to u another way.....
had several from the NHS over my pacemaker.....they phoned in the end.....
I dont loose any sleep over it....

 

[Benchwayze]

Robgul:

Just after the millennium I tried to set up an old scholars' group for my school. No problem. Just advrrtise locally. We had a number of enjoyable meets. Then someone suggested we find our old school captain. He was a popular guy, but no one wanted the job. Because of my my experience I was persuaded to seek him. I found this guy inside 6-weeks and he had changed addresses 12 times since leaving school. With a male who hasn't changed name this is easy. With a female you need to know the married name. To find that you nèed the date and place of the wedding. As for the rest it's not difficult at all, and by using public records, neither is it illegal

John

 

[bryan267]

Spoofed email address probably, and a scam attempt, and if it includes a clickable link(s) - don't click on it/them. If you hover over a clickable link, at the bottom left of your screen (usually) will be shown the address to which you'd go to if you do activate the link. All the scammer wants is a link you create by clicking on their link so they can get into your computer and roam around and help themselves to whatever they want.

Some scammers have got even more clever and they've made the close email or delete button into a surreptitious link so simply closing/deleting the email in your email client can get you into trouble. That's why I go to my internet provider's website to pre-screen emails on their server before I download emails to my email client (MS Outlook). At least that way I can get out of an email I don't like the look of by selecting the refresh button on their user interface rather than clicking on anything within the email itself. I'm not sure that's a fool-proof and safer method for dealing with all the scam emails, but so far it seems to have worked for me. Slainte.

I am sorry but that is not good practice or advice.

Different email reading programs work slightly differently, I use Microsoft outlook. Seeing/opening a suspicious email in any form does one thing, it fetches the pictures from the scammers server informing them that your email address is valid and active. Looking at it on the email providers server doesn’t help because you will still download the picture. You are incorrect in your statement that scam emails can infect the delete button of your email client application. That can only happen where the email itself incorporates a fake delete button. They cannot change the actions of your client software buttons.

reporting email as fake/scam in your email software helps your software to spot scams and places more of them in your junk email folder, where your software should download text only. You should see a trend of emails in your junk folder without pictures, some are sent with the message and so will display but do not have the effect of reporting to the scammer that you have seen the picture, though may still contain harmful applets or links if clicked.

if in doubt best not to click anything in the email message window but to move or report it as junk and regularly empty that folder.

Hope that helps

 

[stevek]

I had one of the scam emails from the Royal Mail, goes along the lines of “we attempted to deliver a parcel today, click here to arrange redelivery” Royal Mail logo etc, and with us all buying more and more online I imagine its a scam thats working extremely well,,,trouble is you might be waiting for a parcel,,now we will never directly respond to any email, I just ignored this one but if I thought “it could be genuine” then I will persue it via another route, contact Royal Mail direct etc,,,its s bloody pain but its the only say to protect ourselves.

 

[OldWood]

Scamming barstewards. They use automated system to call numbers. The system checks if the number answers, but that's all. If it does, that number goes on a list of 'live numbers'that is then passed to another group who then have humans call the number asking about the accident you had last week. If you say anything positive, or don't hang up or even engage with them, that number goes on a list of 'gullible people' After all that is done, the lists are sold on.

All my 'calling about the accident last week' come from Glasgow.
I never answer a number I don't know. If it's genuine, they will leave a message or call back, but I still won't answer.

You can check if your ID has been hacked, or appears on a spambot list.

One of my email ID's has been associated with 13 major security breaches by companies such as Adobe, My Heritage, LinkedIn, also on several lists of hacked accounts. One list contains 2.7 billion records, 226 million address/password combinations, but I have had that email address for about 30 years.

An article about scams and you expect us to link which is not mainstream. I am tempted to say I think not!!

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I am sorry but that is not good practice or advice.

You are incorrect in your statement that scam emails can infect the delete button of your email client application. That can only happen where the email itself incorporates a fake delete button. They cannot change the actions of your client software buttons.

Hope that helps

It does help. I'm certainly not an expert and assume you know more about such things than I do. I got the information about infecting the delete button from (I think and don't now properly recall) reading a newspaper article in its business/finance section about people that had lost money through such email scams. There was some discussion in the article about how some scammers had found a way to do this to the close and delete key of opened emails. Maybe they'd got their information wrong, but I can't say one way or another. Slainte.

 

[Sandyn]

An article about scams and you expect us to link which is not mainstream. I am tempted to say I think not!!

Yes, I can understand. I did a follow up post #21 which gives another link.......to a Wiki entry about the site, but it's another link......so I put an extract from the wiki site with a brief note about the site. It is a reasonably well known site with three million subscribers.
I was just trying to be helpful, but articles like that obviously cause suspicion, so you are right to be cautions.

Here is another link to to Which? That tells you all about the site. If you don't want to click on that link. This is what Which? says about the site.

"""
What is Have I Been Pwned?

The best known site for checking if your email address, or any account associated with it, has been hacked, is called Have I Been Pwned.

Here, you can enter your email address (safely) and the site will check it against multiple data breach records. If your account details were included in one of those breaches, you'll be told the bad news that you've been 'pwned'.

To find out if your own email address has been affected by a data breach, head to the Have I Been Pwned website. You’ll need to enter your email address here – don’t worry, there’s no security threat to doing so, and you’ll never be asked to enter a password or other personal data."""

 

[TRITON]

A scam

Yup, and whats more you never open it or more importantly delete it. If you dont recognize the email, just ignore it and allow it to eventually drop off the page.
If its opened(as in click it when its opened to go to whatever log in or whatever they want you to do,or even deleted, it sends back notification that the email (your email) is active and you'll a whole bunch more.


I was getting plagued with scammer phone calls and went through the blocking last number called but it did no damn good at all.
So I stopped answering them, and stopped shouting obscenities down the phone and let it go to answering machine.
I get maybe a run of one a day for couple of weeks, the answering machine takes over but it doesnt get to the beep before that scammer hangs up their end.
Then they stop, for a few months. Im giving them nothing to go on, no answer apart from the automated 'Please leave' etc etc
I dont get scam emails at all and thats been years.