The scams are getting really sophisticated now.

[artie]

 

[garyaustin077]

View attachment 147979

within minutes of seeing this i almost paid it my self very convincing i must say

 

[Distinterior]

.....Just how dense do you have to be to fall for that...?

 

[woodieallen]

Artie perhaps ?

 

[Blackswanwood]

The rest of what?

 

[Just4Fun]

That is quite a poor example. I would guess (hope) it is a first attempt - either they will give up after this, or improve their game.

I just got a scam email with a similar level of sophistication. In just 2 poor sentences it informs me that the sender needs help to access 50 million dollars and my share will be 35%. There are 2 things of note. First, the email is written in Finnish, which shows an unusual dedication to seeking out and catering for the local market. Second, I wonder where they got my email address from, since there is nothing in the address which indicates that I am in Finland. It must have come from a local source somewhere in Finland, and one which has my true email address. I don't often give that out.

 

[Pineapple]

.....Just how dense do you have to be to fall for that...?

As dense as the twerp who posted it.

 

[niemeyjt]

Second, I wonder where they got my email address from, since there is nothing in the address which indicates that I am in Finland. It must have come from a local source somewhere in Finland, and one which has my true email address. I don't often give that out.

Have a look at https://haveibeenpwned.com/ - may give you an idea (and everyone else look too!)

 

[johna.clements]

That is quite a poor example. I would guess (hope) it is a first attempt - either they will give up after this, or improve their game.

I just got a scam email with a similar level of sophistication. In just 2 poor sentences it informs me that the sender needs help to access 50 million dollars and my share will be 35%. There are 2 things of note. First, the email is written in Finnish, which shows an unusual dedication to seeking out and catering for the local market. Second, I wonder where they got my email address from, since there is nothing in the address which indicates that I am in Finland. It must have come from a local source somewhere in Finland, and one which has my true email address. I don't often give that out.

The number of spam emails and texts seems to go up after I have applied for a lot of jobs in the past. People sell email address and phone numbers either personally or as part of the companies business policy.

 

[artie]

As dense as the twerp who posted it.

Artie perhaps ?

It's a joke, I thought it was funny.

No need to be insulting.

 

[jimbob01]

I got scammed from a guy who bought something from me .... he had took a payment from someone else. (a women for a playstation he didn't own}
then told me his sister would pay and could I send it special delivery!

I did it on the condition he paid as PayPal friends and family.... I forgot to check it was friends and family payment

(my fault I was in the middle of doing other things as I saw the payment come up on my phone)

I sent it out special delivery (700 pound sale) and then a week later I got an email from a lady asking where her playstation was!.... took me a while to work it all out... I had the guys phone number and he answered the phone and admitted what he had done!!!
he then promised to return the item after a few gentle words... he then pretended it had been sent after I even paid for the return delivery... at this point I decided better to drop the whole thing as I was in danger of doing something I would later surely regret.
my sanity was more important...
it seems that some people are very desperate ...

 

[selectortone]

I wonder where they got my email address from,

There have been many hacks over the years where databases of email addresses have been stolen. A notable one was when yahoo mail was hacked - the hackers got hundreds of millions of addresses from that including the btinternet database who were using yahoo as mail provider at the time. They didn't get passwords, but valid email addresses with user names are gold dust to spammers and spoofers. Many big UK companies have been hacked including Currys so if you ever gave them your email (they always ask for it instore at the checkout), then your address is out there on the dark web.

I got myself a Gmail email account after my spam content at btinternet started going up and up, and their spam detection is almost 100%. That's my main email now and I'm happy with it. Of course I never put anything I would consider of interest to a spammer or hacker (or the NSA or GCHQ for that matter) in an email.

I still have my btinternet address and their spam detection is next to useless - I had that address for a long time and can't give it up as I still get the odd genuine email from old contacts, but each time I log in - once a month or so - there are 50 or more spam emails, some asking me to click on very dodgy links.

 

[Linus]

There have been many hacks over the years where databases of email addresses have been stolen. A notable one was when yahoo mail was hacked - the hackers got hundreds of millions of addresses from that including the btinternet database who were using yahoo as mail provider at the time. They didn't get passwords, but valid email addresses are gold dust to spammers and spoofers. Many big UK companies have been hacked including Currys so if you ever gave them your email (they always ask for it instore at the checkout), then your address is out there on the dark web.

I got myself a Gmail email account after my spam content at btinternet started going up and up, and their spam detection is almost 100%. That's my main email now and I'm happy with it. Of course I never put anything I would consider of interest to a spammer or hacker (or the NSA or GCHQ for that matter) in an email.

I still have my btinternet address and their spam detection is next to useless - I had that address for a long time and can't give it up as I still get the odd genuine email from old contacts, but each time I log in - once a month or so - there are 50 or more spam emails, some asking me to click on very dodgy links.

I am on gmail at present and notice spam numbers rising so instead of deleting them I have let them roll in out of interest. So far in November I have received 82 spam mails! I don't think gmail are very good at filtering obvious spam at all.

 

[selectortone]

I am on gmail at present and notice spam numbers rising so instead of deleting them I have let them roll in out of interest. So far in November I have received 82 spam mails! I don't think gmail are very good at filtering obvious spam at all.

That's interesting. I've been on Gmail for about five years now and very few spam emails get through to my inbox. Less than one a month. My spam folder has eight spam emails for the last 30 days - five purporting to be from my sister but with the wrong email address. She's on btinternet!

 

[Just4Fun]

Have a look at https://haveibeenpwned.com/ - may give you an idea (and everyone else look too!)

Thanks, I had not checked that for a while. There were some exposures listed there but not lately and none that would suggest to a scammer that they should communicate with me in Finnish.

 

[Just4Fun]

The number of spam emails and texts seems to go up after I have applied for a lot of jobs in the past

That is an interesting twist I had not thought of. Yes, I have applied for jobs and that would be within the country, so it is certainly a possible source. Food for thought.

 

[Dibs-h]

I am on gmail at present and notice spam numbers rising so instead of deleting them I have let them roll in out of interest. So far in November I have received 82 spam mails! I don't think gmail are very good at filtering obvious spam at all.

I run my own email and after the last "tightening" of the rules - I must get about 3 spam a year and that's only because I haven't ticked the box to delete the few that get thru - purely to make sure an email doesn't get wrongly tagged.

 

[mikej460]

I'm quite scam savvy (or so I thought) and Gmail filters out all my spam which is reassuring, but a few months ago I had a phone call from my bank, very professional, very English and polite stating that my account had been compromised and they needed to verify my account and were sending me an access code that I needed to read back to him. I was right in the middle of something in the workshop and like a fool as soon as the code arrived by text I read it back. He immediately cut me off and I suddenly realised I'd been scammed. I immediately rang my bank and got through to the fraud department who confirmed that an attempt had been made to pay for a holiday in Greece but fortunately for me there wasn't enough funds in my account to pay for it, so it was declined. They even told me which website the scammer had used and for what holiday! They were very good and stopped my card and issued a new one, but it was so embarrassing, and I felt such a fool.

 

[pe2dave]

Be aware though, the scammers (some) are becoming really smart. The 'too good to be true' prices lure you to fake sites etc.
'you have been selected' for xxx is another clever one.
I agree about gmail, about as good as it gets for removal.

 

[John Brown]

I read somewhere, a few years back, that scammers tend to make the first approach fairly obvious, as that way they filter in the gullible victims. They don't want to waste time trying to scam the tech savvy ones.
I've only fallen for something once, which was a fake USA visa waiver site. In my defence, I had suddenly remembered that mine had expired the night before the flight. However, I'd been through the process many times, and should have smelt a rat, especially when I was charged $80. Luckily, I made a Giant Fuss, and PayPal eventually refunded my money.