Have you ever been Scammed?

[maqroll]

4 hours ago, Seat68 said:

Not aware of this thing but why are you certain it's a scam?

The confirmation email was dodgy so I checked with Danner Boots and they said it wasn't a legit sale with their company. Chinese scammers apparently. I'm always pretty vigilant and skeptical but I was half asleep and was enticed by the boots and the discount. 

[maqroll]

Many years ago I was scammed out of about $400. A very slick scam that burned a lot of other people in Boston. 

I answered an ad in the paper for a company who ran firefighter exam prep classes. 

The ad made it seem almost as if it was a critical part of the process and that they were sort of semi official. 

They held actual classes in a rented space downtown. A total of maybe 8 classes over a few weeks with instructors who were former firefighters or so they said.

They had study booklets and everything. It wasn't useless info and maybe you came out of it better prepared, so they could legally get away with it in that way.

But for people who were desperate to get a FF job, they were selling hope and packaging it in a clever way.

Pre internet days made things harder to suss out and probably hundreds of people paid them for what we thought was an almost procedural inside track to a job. 

But it was essentially a scam, even though I can't prove it.

I ended up scoring 96/100 but it wasn't high enough. Very few spots and thousands of wannabes.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by maqroll

[Rds1983]

2 hours ago, Dodgyknees said:

Weird this has been posted, I just found a channel called “Catfished” on YouTube and I’m obsessed with it. Seeing the stories people tell

Jim Browning's channel on YouTube is a good watch. He does stuff like hacking scam call centres and posting the interactions. 

[GarethRDR]

Yes, I thought I was signing up to an association of Holiday Home enthusiasts.

[Dodgyknees]

1 hour ago, Rds1983 said:

Jim Browning's channel on YouTube is a good watch. He does stuff like hacking scam call centres and posting the interactions. 

I’ll check it out, I also like Pleasant Green. 

[Follyfoot]

Women Empowering women, marketing perfect for the target audience,. Will say no more 

[sidcow]

6 hours ago, Xela said:

Seriously though, luckily I've been ok online so far and not fallen for any scams. I have been scammed face to face though. I got drugged on a night out in Hong Kong once. I got separated from my mates and was chatting to a group of girls next thing I know, I wake up the next afternoon in my hotel room, with a splitting headache and a few hundred pounds lighter. 

I've got pictures of that night. 

[Davkaus]

I nearly fell for one this morning. I'm expecting loads of deliveries in the next couple of days that I need before the weekend, and got a text that seemed to be from DPD, with a link that looked to be DPD's site (but wasn't when opening in the browser), and a webpage that looked pixel-perfect like a DPD website, asking me to pay to rearrange for a missed delivery.

I've never had a message quite like it before, and it seemed an awful lot more plausible because I did actually have a DPD delivery yesterday - if I hadn't already received it, I might have fallen for it.

What are the odds that my first DPD delivery in several months is accompanied by a text like that? I suspect an inside man...

[fightoffyour]

I had one concerning a bank switch, stating something like a 20 digit reference code correctly. I didn't quite go through with it, and I still don't know if it was a scam or not. But would require some inside info obviously.

Gave what seems to be the genuine phone number to call but the email was from a very dodgy address and just contained 2 lines of plain text.

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

I had one concerning a bank switch, stating something like a 20 digit reference code correctly. I didn't quite go through with it, and I still don't know if it was a scam or not. But would require some inside info obviously.

Gave what seems to be the genuine phone number to call but the email was from a very dodgy address and just contained 2 lines of plain text.

A bank will never contact you by email or text about something like that would be more of a letter. If they do contact you then they will ask you to enter the branch physically

Bank scams are fairly easy to avoid but can be quite scary when get a message from somebody saying they are from the bank and people panic

[fightoffyour]

16 minutes ago, Zatman said:

A bank will never contact you by email or text about something like that would be more of a letter. If they do contact you then they will ask you to enter the branch physically

Bank scams are fairly easy to avoid but can be quite scary when get a message from somebody saying they are from the bank and people panic

The strange thing is that it doesn't say click a link or enter anything, just call this number. And that number is, as far as I can tell, the same number that's on the bank's website.

The email is this:

Quote

Nationwide@nwweb4.matshost.co.uk

Your postcode is _____ Hello, We are contacting you to confirm your recent current account switch xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx has not been completed. Please contact your old bank to resolve this issue. Once you have done this, please call us on 03457 30 20 11 to proceed. Thanks for banking with us.

Sender is dodgy as ****. Details completely correct.

Edited June 8, 2022 by fightoffyour

[Davkaus]

18 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

The strange thing is that it doesn't say click a link or enter anything, just call this number. And that number is, as far as I can tell, the same number that's on the bank's website.

The email is this:

Sender is dodgy as ****. Details completely correct.

That like it might be a genuine email sent by a poorly configured email service

Either that, or someone's been running this convoluted scam for years without having the domain shut down

 

[Mark Albrighton]

So probably a standard scam in the grand scheme of things but just as it (nearly) happened today.

Had a couple of genuine looking O2 text messages today at 6.03pm with a one-time code to access my account. I didn’t request such a code.

Also at 6.03pm, I had two missed calls from two Manchester numbers. Obvious I didn’t answer either call.

I spoke to O2 under my own steam, nothing untoward appears to have happened. 

Basically the likelihood is it’s the scammers getting my number, contacting O2 as me requesting a security code, then phoning me up probably under the guise of being from O2 saying “Oh that text we’ve just sent you, what’s the code and we can sort this for you…”. 

Obviously didn’t work for them in this case, but I can see the realistic text messages from O2 being convincing enough for someone who maybe a bit more vulnerable to this sort of thing.

 

* In all honesty I’m not sure if these text messages were genuine automated ones from O2 or not. They come up as “O2 UK”. It looks legitimate enough to be believable, regardless.
 

 

[Seat68]

My grandson has a Go Henry card that he spends at HMV and occasionally diamonds for his Singing Monsters, it was cloned but good on Go Henry, they immediately recognised an incorrect attempted purchase, blocked it and are issuing a new card. 

[AlwaysAVFC]

8 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

So probably a standard scam in the grand scheme of things but just as it (nearly) happened today.

Had a couple of genuine looking O2 text messages today at 6.03pm with a one-time code to access my account. I didn’t request such a code.

Also at 6.03pm, I had two missed calls from two Manchester numbers. Obvious I didn’t answer either call.

I spoke to O2 under my own steam, nothing untoward appears to have happened. 

Basically the likelihood is it’s the scammers getting my number, contacting O2 as me requesting a security code, then phoning me up probably under the guise of being from O2 saying “Oh that text we’ve just sent you, what’s the code and we can sort this for you…”. 

Obviously didn’t work for them in this case, but I can see the realistic text messages from O2 being convincing enough for someone who maybe a bit more vulnerable to this sort of thing.

 

* In all honesty I’m not sure if these text messages were genuine automated ones from O2 or not. They come up as “O2 UK”. It looks legitimate enough to be believable, regardless.
 

 

My mom had the same happen last week. Thankfully she was wary of it.

I received a recruitment company WhatsApp the other day, saying they were from Man power. Plenty of things pointed to a scam including her name being Rubby.

[Mark Albrighton]

9 minutes ago, AlwaysAVFC said:

My mom had the same happen last week. Thankfully she was wary of it.

I received a recruitment company WhatsApp the other day, saying they were from Man power. Plenty of things pointed to a scam including her name being Rubby.

I don’t know if it’s odd or not (and I know I’m tempting fate) but I’ve never had a WhatsApp scam, attempted or otherwise. Just from what I read they seem to be a relatively common occurrence.

[foreveryoung]

Yes everytime I walk through that frame thingy at the airport. 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Yes everytime I walk through that frame thingy at the airport. 

And yet you still keep handing over your belongings

[Davkaus]

9 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

In all honesty I’m not sure if these text messages were genuine automated ones from O2 or not. They come up as “O2 UK”. It looks legitimate enough to be believable, regardless.

Yeah you're right to be cautious - the sender on an SMS is easily spoofed, there's no reason at all to think. SMS should be treated as even less trustworthy as emails, so it's good to be incredibly sceptical of any request or link sent in them.

In this case though I think you're probably right, I can't think of an obvious use for a fake OTP, so it was probably a real one they were trying to trick you into using. Most companies at least put a "don't share this code" message in the OTP message now but it still works on some people presumably

Edited May 25, 2023 by Davkaus

[VILLAMARV]

I bought a copy of Ghostbusters AND Ghostbusters 2 on VHS back in the day from one of the shops in Shrewsbury. Not 2 VHS tapes but both films on one tape back to back. Half way through Ghostbusters two the tape ran out, the machine stopped, it started to rewind itself and we didn't find out what happened to the painting dude.

Still have it in a box somewhere