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My family just had a family reunion and we've had e-mails flying around with all the family e-mail accounts clearly posted. Yesterday someone sent out a bogus e-mail to people on the list claiming to be from one of my nephews. It begged for money to that was supposedly needed to help him pay for a license he needed to complete a project. It was a very cleverly written scam--mentioned other things that had been in our e-mails so it sounded convincing. Said he was too embarrassed to ask his dad for help, so please don't tell. Even the project the supposedly needed this license was something that had been lifted from one of our family e-mails. The tip off was the money needed to be sent to this special account, not to my nephew.
Just letting everyone know there are a lot of scams out there targeting grandparents and retirees in general. They are becoming increasingly slick and convincing.
the rule of thumb we use cause so many of us have been hacked is: if there is no subject or if the message is from someone you don't know don't open. I even had one from Yahoo today, I did not open and one from Microsoft...
the rule of thumb we use cause so many of us have been hacked is: if there is no subject or if the message is from someone you don't know don't open. I even had one from Yahoo today, I did not open and one from Microsoft...
Like others, I have learned to be very leery of many emails. Now, a question, has anyone had or heard of phishing through Skype? I have an account, don't use it much but today I had two auto calls coming in that said "system help urgent" I declined the first call and ignored the second one. Does that sound fishy? As I said, I don't use Skype enough to know it that well.
LOL just got a new scam in my e-mail today. This one is actually pretty clever. Claims they are Fed-Ex and tried to deliver a package to you. If you don't pick it up within a few days you owe them $16/day. They instruct you to open a zip that supposedly has a "label" you will need to pick up this package.
I personally know of someone who was scammed out of $15,000 by a phone call from supposedly her grandson. She swears it sounded precisely like him. I heard of another such case. What interests me, is how the con artists are duplicating loved one's voices. Do you think they voice sample and then run thru a computer to similate speech? A good reason not to do the video/audio thing via computer I guess.
This happened to my mother in law. She answered the phone and the con artist said Grandma. She replied Troy is that you. And the con took it from there. He didn't need to much about her family just took his chances. The con was asking for money because of a car accident. She gave the phone to my father in law and he said to the con. What is your father's name? The con hung up.
We tend to hear what we want to hear or think we are hearing.
Some of the scam emails or text, phone messages you'll likely receive are alerts that your accounts have been compromised and to update your info via the email, phone, etc. Don't do it. Those messages will be nearly indistinguishable from the establishment of which you actually use, such as banks, credit card companies, etc. If you have a ques ion, call the number on your statements or the number on the back of your cards.
It's amazing all the scams out there, I've had relatives and neighbors accounts hijacked. Remember last year getting messages from a neighbor's email account that they were stranded and just needed a few hundred dollars to get back to the states. LOL. Actually thought the neighbor had lost their mind, since we weren't close, wondered why they would be asking me. Evidently, my complexes management office received the same email. Just this year, one of my email accounts was hijacked and people were writing back to me asking why was I sending them job site information. I was able to recover my email address change passwords thank goodness.
Anyway, I'm not going to stop banking via the net, for the past 15 years, I've rarely ever had a bad experience. Hope that won't change as long as I use good sense and don't let the scammers out sense me.
I had this happen to me twice with a former bank I used. It is called phishing. I'm with you though, I won't stop using banking and other financial transactions online. I figure if not electronically, the bad guys will find some other way. We all just have to be very careful.
I was alerted to being phished even though I had never heard of it because although it had the bank's logo and looked legit, they asked for my password and that's when the red flag went up in my head. I called the bank and they told me it was a scam. They never asked for a password.
When it happened a second time a year later I knew what is was and reported it to the bank again. If something doesn't look right, it probably isn't.
LOL just got a new scam in my e-mail today. This one is actually pretty clever. Claims they are Fed-Ex and tried to deliver a package to you. If you don't pick it up within a few days you owe them $16/day. They instruct you to open a zip that supposedly has a "label" you will need to pick up this package.
Don't open it!!!!
I get this one on a regular basis.
The first time I confirmed with my hubby first that he didn't order anything, which he didn't, so I send it to "report spam".
The robo calls / political calls are making me nuts so I have turned off the phone ringer so the only calls I hear are the one from friends who are leaving messages on the answering machine. (Yip, we have only a land line.) It is nice to have quiet evenings again.
The first time I confirmed with my hubby first that he didn't order anything, which he didn't, so I send it to "report spam".
The robo calls / political calls are making me nuts so I have turned off the phone ringer so the only calls I hear are the one from friends who are leaving messages on the answering machine. (Yip, we have only a land line.) It is nice to have quiet evenings again.
One thing I do that works, I have assigned different ring tones to my friends and family so I will know who is calling right away. If it doesn't play a tune, I won't answer it. It will go to voice mail or I can just look at caller ID to see if I want to call the caller back if I don't know them.
But like you, I don't care for the noise.
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Actually thought the neighbor had lost their mind, since we weren't close, wondered why they would be asking me. Evidently, my complexes management office received the same email. Just this year, one of my email accounts was hijacked and people were writing back to me asking why was I sending them job site information. 
I was able to recover my email address change passwords thank goodness.
