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Scam of the day!!

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mikephillips

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So, I got an email this afternoon. Opened with "congratulations you have won", and went on to tell me how my entry had won a two week all expenses vacation on a "Caribbean Island Paradise". And All I needed to do was click the link, enter my personal information, along with some money related info, just to prove it was me of course, and I'd be sent the when to arrive details. Course none of it mentioned me by name, just "Lucky Participant!!". Bet you can guess how quick that went into the bye-bye folder...
 
A couple of years ago I showed my wife an email I received telling me about a flat screen TV that I had “won”. Of course I trashed it.
A few days later there was an Amazon box at my door with a TV in it. I showed it to my wife and said “see, I told you we won” :devilgrin:
In actuality it was delivered to the wrong house. My neighbor had actually ordered one from Amazon…. I walked it over to the neighbor.
 
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I just got an email from "Team Elon Musk" this morning. It said they have been trying to reach me about my Tesla stock claim. It said please reply for more information. Signed by CEO and chief engineer, Space-X.
 
I always delete anything that sounds too good to be true and I guess that my diligence has paid off. Last week I was notified that a very wealthy Nigerian prince had died and left me a fortune. I should get the money any day now and, when I do, I plan to share it with everyone here.
 
I get those types of scams more often than I can count. An even more nefarious scam is the one that looks like an email from your actual bank. They say something like "we have detected unusual activity on your account", please log in to verify your information. Then they have a link for you to click that leads to a look-alike site where they want you to log in, thus giving them your real log in credentials.
 
waltesefalcon said:
I don't know that gaining access to my $8, would be much of a pay off.
Click to expand...
Considering how little work these scams take to perpetrate, that's still a profit for them.

On the flip side, I was just notified that I got an $8.93 PayPal payment as part of a class-action settlement. That one was actually legit, I did a little digging before filling out the paperwork. I never noticed any pain or loss over what sparked the lawsuit, and I think I barely qualified to join, hence the small payout. Filling out the form probably cost more than $9 of my time (although I did it during work hours 🙃 ), but it still feels like "free" money to me.

(It had something to do with AMC Network subscription fees; IIRC I had signed up for AcornTV or something just one month before the lawsuit was filed. And I think I paid less than $8.93 for that month of service?)
 
Just wondering ... when you get those bogus emails, do you report them as spam to your email provider? or just delete them.
 
NutmegCT said:
Just wondering ... when you get those bogus emails, do you report them as spam to your email provider? or just delete them.
Click to expand...

Sometimes I report them if a specific organization is involved (e.g. if I get a fake email from PayPal or my bank, etc., I will forward it to their scam department.) But for general scam or junk emails, most of them go to my junk folder anyway and get deleted. I also have a rule set up that will put any email from someone or some organization not in my contact list in a special folder I set up called “maybe junk.”

I can quickly scan through that folder and delete emails that I know are clearly scam or junk mail. If I do get an email in there from someone who I want to receive email from, I will add that email address to my contact list so that future emails from that person will go into my inbox.
 
And never click the link anyone provides if the email is supposed to be for a business issue. If it's your bank or such, there should be one on the paperwork you get sent each month. Or you can look them up online if you don't have anything, then call and verify. Doesn't hurt these days to be suspicious of everything that lands in your inbox requesting you do something since anyone anywhere in the world may be trying to con you.
 
So I don't answer numbers I don't know, let them roll to voicemail. So this morning got a call and recorded message saying that Spectrum was bumping their bill by 40% by removing a discount I get and to call the number back to reinstate it. Only thing, I don't have Spectrum. So off to the trash file for the message and number..
 
Just got a scam text this morning:
"How is your family?"
OK, clearly you don't know me or you wouldn't be asking. And despite not knowing me, you neither address me by name nor introduce yourself. Hmm, what reply would be appropriate here? Oh, I know, I'll borrow from Dilbert:
"Dead, same as last week." (I told you a friend wouldn't have asked me that)
"Sorry for your loss. If you're still looking for a new job, someone gave me your resume... "

Where do I start. Should I start with the fact that you started off by offending me and then blew it off to continue your scam? Wait, maybe you really are looking to hire me. Would I want to work for someone who acts like that? I'm sure they'd be really understanding and accommodating with FMLA requests. "My wife's funeral is tomorrow." "Sorry for your loss, we're short-staffed so I need you here tomorrow."

Should I start with the fact that you still haven't addressed me by name (despite having my resume), you still haven't introduced yourself, and you didn't bother to name the "someone" who gave you my resume?

Or should I start with the fact that the last resume I wrote was well over 20 years ago (and was less than impressive even back then)? Or with the fact that it's never, ever, been posted online? So the only "someone" who could have given it to them would be my current employers? If they wanted to be rid of me, I doubt they'd start by trying to find me a better job! (Although they are really great people to work for, so maybe they would...?)
 
That's where you spin a story like, "Can't talk right now, the cops have the place surrounded and I'm sneaking out with the bags of money I grabbed through the sewer. Once I make it out of the country, assuming the car runs really fast, the airliner I plan to take flies really far, and some South American country takes me in, and I build that giant space laser to ransom the world, I'll get back to you. Hope you don't mine a budding "Bond" villain on the payroll, I already have the eye patch and cat to sit on my lap."

If they're going to annoy us least we can do is try to show we're "crazy"...
 
mikephillips said:
That's where you spin a story like, "Can't talk right now, the cops have the place surrounded and I'm sneaking out with the bags of money I grabbed through the sewer.
Click to expand...
Even better, include them in the paranoid delusion -- "I'm sneaking out with the bags of money YOU handed me... " "Once YOU make it out of the country... "

And, of course, "Once this all blows over, YOU'RE GOING TO OWE ME BIG TIME!!"
 
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