Scams

[ger_g]

Probably none of you would respond to those dodgy emails saying you've won the Nigerian sweepstakes etc etc but this story caught my eye... someone using family tree research to scam money. Here's to being very careful!

link to newspaper

Ger



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[Jean McGurn]

Just goes to show the depths these people will plunge to. 

Jean

[Tony Payne]

The Nigerian scams are notorious - there is a website somewhere (forget the link) that describes all of them and the variations.

Most of these scams fail because the wording and spelling is so pathetic it's obvious it's not genuine, BUT there are some really clever ones out there, especially the fake emails from your Bank or from eBay etc.

I use a number of different email addresses (especially easy if you have your own domain), and use specific ones for specific purposes, for example eBay.  If I get an email that looks genuine and seems to come from eBay, if it's sent to my email address FRED@xxxx.com but I am registered at eBay with TOM@xxxx.com then I know it's a fake.  Also many of these look genuine, but are sent out to a gazillion people at a time.  That should make it very obvious that it's not real - any communication just for you will be sent only to you.

Hopefully none of us fall into the traps.........
Stay safe friends.

[patrish]

I have received a few of these, full of spelling mistakes and asking me to help get money out of the country for which they will pay me handsomely, promptly deleted them all.

[White Lady]

This sounds very scary, especially to someone like me who is new to the Internet.

I will definitely watch out now.   

Christina

[Tony Payne]

Feel free to ask your friends on here Christina - I know there are others as well as me who will try and point you in the right direction if an email etc sounds fishy.

[patrish]

Christina, I live by my internet motto "when is doubt delete it out" you cant go wrong then, genuine people will get back to you.

Patrish.

[ozlady]

I've had a lot of 'Bank" emails in the last week or so...... so obviously scams as I'd never had dealings with any of them! I did have one purporting to be from the bank that I do use (another scam). I got in touch with my branch and they asked me to forward the email to them. I did that and the Fraud Dept. got back to me to say it was one they hadn't seen before and the attachment contained a nasty little trojan.

[Tony Payne]

I have had a lot of bank ones in the last week.  Luckily they all went to an email address that I don't use for anything related to finance, so obviously a scam.  They just want you to click on the link and then they can capture your user/password details.

Most often if you hover over the link in the email it's not even the bank or organisation it's purporting to be.  Sometimes it looks as if it is though, but I have seen a graphic used to show the correct address, but the link behind it is fake.  A clear sign it's a scam.

Most organisations have a link on their web site for you to report fraud.
If you are not sure an email is genune, don't click on their link, go direct to the company website and see if it says anything about the scam or the special offer or whatever the email suggests.  Especially if the email says your account security has been compromised and you need to change your password, NEVER EVER click on it - delete or report it as fraud.