Scam Alert: I had an email in my Scam folder telling me that Avira would be charging my credit card $315 for continued service. Looking at the extended email address, it was...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I had an email in my Scam folder telling me that Avira would be charging my credit card $315 for continued service. Looking at the extended email address, it was "gottiebrobert..." I suppose the next step would be for the "chump" to call or email them and give them the CC number that they shouldn't charge.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

jerryc41 wrote:

I had an email in my Scam folder telling me that Avira would be charging my credit card $315 for continued service. Looking at the extended email address, it was "gottiebrobert..." I suppose the next step would be for the "chump" to call or email them and give them the CC number that they shouldn't charge.

That's EXACTLY what they are hoping to get. Especially for a "refund" of the "charge".....

I keep getting emails at one address that my Norton has expirééd. Emails are predominantly from a server in Romania, but some other countries as well, including the US. They purposely spell with funny letters so your spam filter will not catch it.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Hopefully they don’t puréé your Norton (or anything else).

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

DirtFarmer wrote:

Hopefully they don’t puréé your Norton (or anything else).

Ha, don't think so. Hope not. But there's always a possibility for brand new stuff that is currently unknown.
Comcast seems to do a decent job on not showing the contents, especially "images".
If Comcast puts an email into the SPAM box, ALL links are disabled in the email.
Norton seems to do well also.

I add to my spam filters, seems like daily sometimes. But I'm not going to add all variations in charactérs for the subjéct liné. I just flag them as SPAM for Comcast. The "From"s are usually all spoofed anyway.

Most contents are parsed for display, that is, the email only contains "data" that when parsed will show the information, no discernible words, usually pictures (data) that are links.
Luckily Thunderbird and Comcast let me review the header info to see where the email actually originated.
Most times I report them to the sending server company and the hosting company for the links if visible.

JRFINN Loc: Plymouth, MA

Scams also come from FB questioners, such as what was your first car, home town and similar which are questions used to validate a password or user profile.

The are also Amazon fake orders via phone message and email coming in stating your cc would be charged x amount of dollars and of course call xx phone or email.

A lot of people fall for these and it is terrible that scumbags try everything to screw the public.

sueyeisert Loc: New Jersey

There are also call about social security being stopped.

dpfoto Loc: Cape Coral, FL

ANY email I receive with "funny letters" are immediately deleted.

PaulBrit Loc: Merlin, Southern Oregon

I listened recently to a programme on BBC Radio 4, You and Yours last Tuesday, about scammers (it should be available on BBC Sounds) and one of the presenters said “Think fraud first.” and never reply directly to an email from someone you do not know. Same for telephone calls.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

PaulBrit wrote:

I listened recently to a programme on BBC Radio 4, You and Yours last Tuesday, about scammers (it should be available on BBC Sounds) and one of the presenters said “Think fraud first.” and never reply directly to an email from someone you do not know. Same for telephone calls.

Right. It's gotten so that I hesitate to answer the phone now.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

jerryc41 wrote:

Right. It's gotten so that I hesitate to answer the phone now.

New game - I can recognize that RoboCall in 1.5 seconds....
How fast can you hang up?

bw79st Loc: New York City

jerryc41 wrote:

I had an email in my Scam folder telling me that Avira would be charging my credit card $315 for continued service. Looking at the extended email address, it was "gottiebrobert..." I suppose the next step would be for the "chump" to call or email them and give them the CC number that they shouldn't charge.

Here's the latest scam I got by email. It ostensibly was from a guy I knew in the Army and maintain some contact
with. The sending address was his but it was not a link in blue type. It was followed by a gmail address that was a link but I did not recognize.

The sender first sent a short email asking if I was on line as he could not currently be reached by phone. So I should not call to ask!

Here's the text of the scam:
"Sorry for the inconvenience. I need to get a Google play gift card for my nephew, it's his birthday but I can't do this now because I'm seriously ill and my doctor said I should stay indoors for some reason. I have tried to purchase it online but unfortunately have no luck with that, can you get it from any Grocery store around you or Best Buy or online? I'll reimburse you as soon as possible.
Let me know if you can handle this.”

I advised my friend, Dave, and he got back to me saying it was a hack.

bw79st Loc: New York City

I just got another scam. It copied an email I had sent to my accountant/lawyer a few months ago. The sender's email made no sense, and worst of all it instructed me to open the attached zip file.

I copied the full header, and sent the whole thing to my accountant. It was alarming that the scam did include a valid email I sent a few months ago! Anyway, he answered and thanked me and said he had put some security people on it right away.

bw79st Loc: New York City

jerryc41 wrote:

Right. It's gotten so that I hesitate to answer the phone now.

The robocalls are getting out of hand. We have the phone set to go to answering machine after a certain number of rings. The robocalls beat my phone to the punch and hang up, then redial immediately. My cable carrier lets me know that the call is a "SPAM RISK" but that tells me to not answer and let it ring, then let it ring on the redial!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

bw79st wrote:

Here's the latest scam I got by email. It ostensib... (show quote)

If you consider spoofing the "From" a "hack"...
Most people interpret hack as unauthorized account entry has been gained. (They picked the lock.)

Email headers can be spoofed, ibid not coming from the purported sender's email account.
Nine times out of ten, the person's name has simply been copied, like you stated, person's name, wrong email address.

Hacking and spoofing are two totally different things.
But if EVERYONE calls both "hacking", in time they will be.......

bw79st Loc: New York City

Longshadow wrote:

If you consider spoofing the "From" a &q... (show quote)

Good point. I knew that but really didn't think about it! Thanks for the correction. Anyway I usually can tell it's a spoof by inspecting the full header.