Yet another scam

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

A couple of times recently, I have had an email headed Car Insurance, followed by Confirmation Receipt. Message reads As low as $38/ month for Auto Insurance.

Wrong time of year for a renewal. Not quite sure about Confirmation Receipt and what that supposed to mean. Why would I pay in $ in the UK? If that's US $, 38 is roughly £20 and that's almost more than the last premium that I have paid. Auto is an American expression.

Scattergun approach? or does scammer think that I am a bigger twerp than him/ her.

Have to try a little harder!

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

[Anonymous]

Posted by DMB on 27/08/2022 18:39:36:

A couple of times recently, I have had an email headed Car Insurance, followed by Confirmation Receipt. Message reads As low as $38/ month for Auto Insurance.

I don't really understand why you find such an email noteworthy. I probably get 20,30 or more a month scan/spam emails of similar ilk. Often partly, but poorly, targeted Most of them are dealt with by spam-traps/junk-filters.

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

I get asmany as 50 a day on an AOL email, they are the only email provider I use that is incapable of permanently blocking them.

Just report mail as spam.

Jim

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Does ANY internet provider have a permanent blocking facility? Hotmail certainly don't but oh, yes, now their latest format has dropped the block facility.

Regards Ian.

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

BT does a pretty good job in fielding that sort of rubbish. I get very few doubtful emails now and those that do sneak through are the ones to be careful of.

Brian

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Gmail lets through zero spam. Been using it for years. Brilliant.

Hotmail is so dreadful I ended up setting it to receive mail only from senders in my contacts list. Otherwise the flood was un-navigable. The junk mail folder gets dozens of dodgy emails a day, mostly scams, ranging from penis enlargers (why would they even think I needed one of them????) to "your package is awaiting delivery" etc etc and etc.  Just part of the landscape these days. So nothign to worry about. Just ignore and move on. Or get a better email provider.

Edited By Hopper on 28/08/2022 11:05:14

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

I use Hotmail and Gmail and I don't get many scams on either. ( I bet I do now )

[davidkParticipant @davidk]

I find Hotmail works very well at blocking scammers, just the very occasional one gets into the Inbox.

Ian (Circlip), the block facility on Hotmail seems to have changed a while back. If, in your Inbox or other folder, you right-click on an email, a menu box will appear. Down the bottom of the list are the block options (block sender and never block sender). That's what it does on mine anyway, maybe yours will work the same way.

Regards

David

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

davidk, cheers mate, will try that one. Why make life difficult when with a little extra effort you can make it bl**dy impossible.

Regards Ian.

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

I get zero on Gmail, 1 or 2 a week on BTinternet, loads on AOL.

Jim

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

I don't know if this qualifies for inclusion on a 'scam' thread, but I have just discovered Google's Adblock Ultra. Free and appears to work perfectly. Local newspaper sites now work faster without all the nonsense they try to download and it states that it also blocks YouTube ads, so may maybe I can cancel my £11.99 subscription to YouTube premium. At least I hope I can.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Hopper on 28/08/2022 10:59:54:

Gmail lets through zero spam. Been using it for years. Brilliant.

I'd agree generally that gmail's spam trap is very effective, both in trapping stuff gmail rates as spam and in trapping anything you flag as spam, from that point on.

I've had what may be a significant exception though. I've had repeated spam from "Shelly Seedorf" – some financial thing. Never had anything to do with them. No matter how many times I flag it as spam, it's back the next day. I suspect now that in keeping with the current practice of rabid capitalism, gmail is unblocking spam like this for a fee from the spammer. (It may perhaps only be applied to free gmail accounts?).

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 28/08/2022 17:49:00:

Posted by Hopper on 28/08/2022 10:59:54:

Gmail lets through zero spam. Been using it for years. Brilliant.

I'd agree generally that gmail's spam trap is very effective, both in trapping stuff gmail rates as spam and in trapping anything you flag as spam, from that point on.

I've had what may be a significant exception though. I've had repeated spam from "Shelly Seedorf" – some financial thing. Never had anything to do with them. No matter how many times I flag it as spam, it's back the next day. I suspect now that in keeping with the current practice of rabid capitalism, gmail is unblocking spam like this for a fee from the spammer. (It may perhaps only be applied to free gmail accounts?).

I have never had that experience or any like it with Gmail (free account).

One solution would be create a filter that sends any email containing "Seedorf" to the bin, or to a special folder you create for it. I dont remember how you create such filters but I have done it in the past for several friends who tend to forward on too many links to memes etc, so I give them their own folder for their mail to go into instead of clogging up my main inbox. It is pretty simple to do if you look around in the settings etc for something like "create filter".

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Ian – as regards ISP-provided filtering, Plusnet have a pretty good spam filter, along with whitelist and blacklist facilities for controlling what gets through, and I suspect most other ISPs will have similar. Not much use for web-based email clients, though, like Gmail, etc. which many seem to prefer these days for some reason.

And as I've mentioned before, Mailwasher is a very handy utility for controlling spam, I have used it for nearly twenty years now.

Rob

Links to https://www.mailwasher.net/

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

I use Hotmail and it is pathetic. What I notice is the blocked senders change their email address by 1 number or letter daily. Example pink 1,pink2 etc. and We are off to the races again. One Internet provider said, until they block specific computers it will continue.

[Anonymous]

I have ads (labelled as such) in my Hotmail inbox on a daily basis. Presumably ad-spam that Microsoft has been paid not to trap. Much the same as I believe Gmail is doing that I referred to earlier.

It's the way of the future …. first we really tighten up to block spam (which both Microsoft and Google have been doing lately: older clients have more and more difficulty in even sending through their portals), then we offer a back-door – for a price.

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 29/08/2022 18:33:57

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Just had my most convincing spam ever. Claims to be from a high street bank and contains all the usual bank anti-fraud advice, plus phone numbers, addresses etc.

The account number doesn't match, otherwise looks genuine.

It's purpose appears to be to collect personal information. I'm not going to click the button or fill out the form.

Be warned, this one is unusually slick!

Dave

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Not very slick, banks don't phone you

[Dr. MC BlackParticipant @dr-mcblack73214]

I check ALL the messages that are filtered into Junk because the software wrongly sends one or two good, important, messages a month into Junk.

It misses a lot of spam too but deciding that important messages are Junk is very irritating.

MC

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by bernard towers on 29/08/2022 21:16:30:

Not very slick, banks don't phone you

Not a phone call, spam is email.

The email is a close copy of a genuine bank communication and everything is correct except for the 4 digit check number and the request for personal information.

Dave

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

I find it mildly entertaining that some of the scam bank emails have actually taken the text from a real bank email, including the bit that says that they will never ask for personal information via email! Rather like the old Nigerian "I want to give you $10M" emails with their spellng and grammar errors, it's almost as if they include something that tells the aware recipient that they are scam so only those not savvy enough to know what's going on will respond. More easily deceived and less likely to know how to chase afterwards, buying time for the scammer to cover their tracks?

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Latest scam email.

From Broad Band, made to look like it is from BT, heading "Your latest bill is ready". The to box was filled in on mine to go to someone in New Zealand. The IP address appears to be from NY, USA although I suspect rerouted as another IP is a private one.

Just a heads up.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Apparently scammers have now started using modified QR codes instead of click here to get you to move to their site to scam you.

Source BBC

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by KWIL on 29/10/2022 13:11:30:

Apparently scammers have now started using modified QR codes instead of click here to get you to move to their site to scam you.

Source BBC

.

Very easy to do … which is why I checked the content of the one that Neil posted

**LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=181743&p=1

MichaelG.

[Author]

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