Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Just about did as I received email from my brother asking me to do a $200 birthday gift E card for an old friend & his bank card wasn't working & it would take a couple of days to straighten out the snag. I decided to give him a call & check it out. It seems I wasn't the first to question this request. After looking at the address it was easy to see that it had the wrong carrier!
I had a similar experience with someone impersonating a friend of mine. My friend had warned her contacts that her email account had been hacked, but I still thought the scam was legit. In this case the fraudster tried to get me to purchase an Amazon gift card because my friend’s account was said to be frozen. Very clever. Amazon knows all about this scam and knows how to block it.
I've been getting texts from "Netflix" and "Amazon" that my accounts are frozen or suspended. Please click on this link to restore your accounts. But I don't have any accounts with either of them. And I can't click on the links, anyhow. Flip phone, not smart phone. Must be connected to the data breach at the rehab hospital. The hosp. sent a letter and offered free ID protection for a year. I took it. But it's actually.... HOW useful? If the scammer criminal pus-lickers lose my data in exactly one year, then that's wonderful.
A while ago, someone tried to scam my mother. The voice on the phone sounded exactly like my son's, begging for bail money to spring him from a Mexican jail. (He lives around Los Angeles.) She asked a couple of key questions, and the responses were decisive in her decision to hang up the phone. It almost worked, though. Scumpig asshats.
I get those "click this link to restore your account" attempted scams every once in a while. Thing is, the address of the sender never includes the domain name of the company they're claiming to represent.
I get at least a couple of these things every week. The last two were from "Oxota tkahcenko", re "BILL NO.#16 PR1095", and "Бахтияр го Апостолов " re "Invoice payment confirmation."
You've got to admit that the names are pretty interesting.
@Old_Joe carrier = E-mail address . outlook, yahoo, g mail. Email had my brothers first part of address, Handle, but the "carrier" was wrong. Have a good evening, Derf P.S. Bro would never sent $200 !!
One can verify the email address by hovering over the sender's icon. Sometime the email extension, .XXX reveals the country's origin. Watch for those from Middle East and Eastern Europe. Never click on embedded links in the email to download malware.
Beware of email ask to verify your credit cards and banking accounts. If in doubt, call the companies.
Spam email (folder, Windows) offers several choices with a right click on an email. One being, 'to block the sender email address'. When doing this, the sender address is revealed. A lot of interesting email addresses may be viewed. Final function is to select 'add sender to blocked folder'.
A bit more on using "Mail" on a Mac- I believe that you can safely inspect suspicious email by using the main menubar "File" dropdown menu and then choosing "Save As".
This will save the email as a TextEdit "rich text" document, which will allow you to see not only the email text but also any attached graphic files.
Each of the two emails mentioned above, from "Oxota tkahcenko" and "Бахтияр го Апостолов", had bogus PayPal invoices shown, and a phone number which I was supposed to call to presumably sort out the situation.
I've been using Macs for over thirty years, and I still often find lots of cool surprises.
This is even scarier considering that some fintechs are now providing the text-links to click for accounts/billing info for "convivence". People who go for that won't even know if/when they were scammed.
I NEVER click on a link within the email or text even when they seem legit. I once had to call Schwab for the manual steps at its website for something it just wanted clicked within the email and I couldn't figure out how to get to that page myself after login.
Many companies do provide alternate website steps for email clicks they may include in their emails.
Scam emails and text messages are more common today. By reading them more carefully, one can often detect the flaws: written in bad grammer and click baiting to get you to click on the embedded links. Never click on these links. Often that is how malware/worms are introduced into your computer.
If in doubt, go directly to sources to verify the questions.
Comments
A while ago, someone tried to scam my mother. The voice on the phone sounded exactly like my son's, begging for bail money to spring him from a Mexican jail. (He lives around Los Angeles.) She asked a couple of key questions, and the responses were decisive in her decision to hang up the phone. It almost worked, though. Scumpig asshats.
Key observation!
You've got to admit that the names are pretty interesting.
Have a good evening, Derf
P.S. Bro would
never sent $200 !!
Beware of email ask to verify your credit cards and banking accounts. If in doubt, call the companies.
Using "Mail" on my Macs, you would have to open the email to see the sender's icon. I don't ever even open a suspect email.
This will save the email as a TextEdit "rich text" document, which will allow you to see not only the email text but also any attached graphic files.
Each of the two emails mentioned above, from "Oxota tkahcenko" and "Бахтияр го Апостолов", had bogus PayPal invoices shown, and a phone number which I was supposed to call to presumably sort out the situation.
I've been using Macs for over thirty years, and I still often find lots of cool surprises.
I NEVER click on a link within the email or text even when they seem legit. I once had to call Schwab for the manual steps at its website for something it just wanted clicked within the email and I couldn't figure out how to get to that page myself after login.
Many companies do provide alternate website steps for email clicks they may include in their emails.
If in doubt, go directly to sources to verify the questions.