For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By gasman
#1861674
I’ve got two degrees, a CPL and own a third of a C182 - I must be quite smart ................WRONG

Today I fell for an internet scam and am £400 poorer.

Without revealing details it involved a convincing email from a colleague, Amazon gift vouchers (!) and my belief that I would never be so stupid.

Lessons learnt : always check sender’s email address and never pay by debit card

Depressed of Yorkshire

:oops:
Last edited by gasman on Wed Jul 28, 2021 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By Sooty25
#1861695
I don't believe that banks and authorities don't have the ability to follow the transactions to their final destination. It just seems easier to penalise and make life more and more difficult for the honest, rather than actually tackle the criminal element.

If it is any consolation, a woman my wife knows (no degrees and couldn't fly a kite) was one click away from losing £20k a few days ago. Bank spotted and blocked it.

Sympathies @gasman now go lock your debit card away.
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By Boxkite
#1861699
gasman wrote:Without revealing details it involved a convincing email from a colleague, Amazon gift vouchers (!) and my belief that I would never be so stupid.


I saw through it, but in my case the email was from a (pilot) friend's address that had been hacked but the hacker had not changed the password, so the friend was unaware. As soon as replies came back to his address they were deleted immediately by the scammer and the friend hardly noticed anything wrong (he is elderly and not so tech savvy).
It involved the scammer wanting to buy his 'niece' some amazon giftcards but he was having a problem with his amazon account. Could I do it for him?
A couple of trick questions revealed he wasn't the friend, and I was able to call my friend.
The main problem was trying to get my friend to understand the importance of it and that his email had been broken in to. He kept thinking he was just receiving spam. I insisted he went to someone who could help him. In the end he took his laptop to an Apple store, whom I then spoke with. They sorted it for him at no charge even though he didn't have an Apple device!
I was able to string along the scammer for a couple of days though :D


My wife almost fell for a scam that involved her installing LogMeIn on her phone while I was away from home.
I shouted down my phone telling her to switch off her phone immediately, which she did.
Five minutes later she called me using her phone again to ask if it was OK to switch on her phone now. :roll:
Last edited by Boxkite on Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1861721
Very easy to get blasé in seeing so many obvious phishing attempts or scams which can be ignored, when a convincing one specifically targets you and gets through your filter. You wont be the first, or the last!

The IT director of one of the businesses I've worked in, decided to check whether company employees would click on bogus or dangerous links (then train them not to!) or execute dodgy files / attachments. The links allowed him to record who clicked on them.
The first email, said something like "don't click bogus links from unknown senders like this or this".
Half the company clicked the link.
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By Nero
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1861725
Thanks for sharing. So important to keep this in people's minds to make them think twice before making a payment.

It's always been a 'thing' but seems to have skyrocketed in frequency recently. Working in the finance function of a fairly large company, I get these fraudulent payment type of scam almost daily now.

We recently had a massive cyber event after a close business partner had an employee simply click on a dodgy link. Now our IT team routinely tries to catch us out with bogus scam emails...

There's actually a simple solution to most of these which we employ: follow it up with a phone call

If you're not expecting to be asked to pay for something online that you haven't discussed before, or are being asked to use different bank details or click on some link, phone your friend or a number from a legitimate, non-linked website and confirm

~ Scott
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By JAFO
#1861727
@gasman - £400 to to Yorkshireman. Blimey, that's like a grand or more.

My commiserations, though.

I had a problem in the other direction this week. I was travelling on Monday and received a text message purporting to be from a well known hotel booking site saying there was a problem with my credit card and I needed to respond within 2 hours or my accommodation would be cancelled.

Clearly a scam.

Five hours later I arrived and they said: "Sorry, your room has been cancelled, there was a problem with your card. Didn't you get the message?"

Luckily there was still a room free.

It shows how difficult things have become, though.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1861769
We had a new web portal thing sent out in work. It wasn't from a company e-mail address and the web address wasn't a company address. I ignored it.

I've since been in at least three meetings where management have been talking about this new portal. It is legit after all. How do they expect us to separate the spam from the legit...? :roll:
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1861780
I and two of my local friends have started getting a recorded scam mobile call in an American accent telling me £x hundred will be taken from my Amazon account and my new iPhone will be delivered tomorrow . “ If you did not make this order press 1 now”

Yeah, right …… :twisted:
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By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1861791
Paul_Sengupta wrote:We had a new web portal thing sent out in work. It wasn't from a company e-mail address and the web address wasn't a company address. I ignored it.

I've since been in at least three meetings where management have been talking about this new portal. It is legit after all. How do they expect us to separate the spam from the legit...? :roll:


Yours is not the only company that does this... :roll:
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By Flyingfemme
#1861821
I have a rule of not doing anything financial on my phone - it goes out and about too much, too easy to steal or lose. So no finacial apps are installed. Then my bank tells me that to authorise a payment I must use the mobile app..............no other way of doing it. :wall: :wall: :wall:
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