This article was written in response to messages from our readers. If you suspect a scam please let us know the details. We will investigate and warn others.
If you receive an eMail with contains an attached .ZIP - DO NOT OPEN IT
If you receive an eMail with contains an attached .ZIP - DO NOT OPEN IT
If you receive an eMail inviting you to click on an XZY "weard looking" http:www. - DO NOT CLICK on it.
Cybercriminals are spamming inboxes with malware claiming to be an e-ticket from British Airways
Fraudsters
have cloned a real British Airways email and attached a ZIP file
containing the supposed ticket. Security firm Sophos has identified its
contents as malware.
The email header has also been forged to make it appear as though they originated at BA.e-ticket@email.ba.com.
The email subject and attachment looks like this:
Subject: BA e-ticket receiptAttached file: BritishAirways-eticket.zip
If
you have recently booked a flight with British Airways you might be
tempted to open the attachment. If you receive one of this emails do not
open the ZIP file and delete it or you run the risk of your computer
being infected.
“Even if you weren't planning to
fly with British Airways soon, you might still open the attachment and
view its contents out of curiosity. And that's precisely what the
cybercriminals are relying upon to infect as many PCs as possible”
►To report a fraud, call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or use our online fraud reporting tool.
Be aware with eMail subjects:
facebook page "Violation of Terms"
BT yahoo "Final warning"
Your eTicket has arrived
Your parcel
Your credit card has been debited
Booking confirmation
Please reset your Online banking access
Royal Mail
MINISTRY OF JUSTICE SCAM
AMAZON SCAM
"The public need to be aware of yet another Amazon scam in circulation. It is a voucher that advertises a £10 voucher for Amazon. However, once you sign up to the voucher and give your personal details to the company £29 will be debited from your account each month and will be described as an administration fee."
"The public need to be aware of yet another Amazon scam in circulation. It is a voucher that advertises a £10 voucher for Amazon. However, once you sign up to the voucher and give your personal details to the company £29 will be debited from your account each month and will be described as an administration fee."
Please report any suspicious eMail! Post it on the Blog so other readers will be aware!
MINISTRY OF PENSIONS SCAM
ReplyDelete"One of our employees was called up last week from a man claiming to be from the Ministry of Pensions. The number was from a mobile phone and although it sounded suspicious, the caller knew her name and address and told her she was due a backdated pension payout of £5,000. To get the money released she would have to pay £200 and at this stage she wisely hung up the phone."
G.M.
DHL SCAM
ReplyDelete"A company pretending to be DHL emailed me to say it had attempted to deliver a parcel to my address but was unable to, and if I wanted to rearrange the delivery I needed to download a reference number.
"Attached to the email was a PDF, which I stupidly thought would be safe to download. As soon as I did every file on my computer became blocked and I had to take the laptop into a local centre to get it fixed."
SANTANDER SCAM
ReplyDelete"An email arrived in my personal inbox this week supposedly from Santander. It said someone had tried to send me money but as the transaction looked suspicious it was declined and my account is now restricted.
"Therefore I was asked to confirm some personal details to be able to access my account again. Although it looked quite genuine there were also a lot of spelling mistakes in the text, which hinted it might be a scam."
ROMANCE SCAM
ReplyDelete"I have been in contact with a man who is stuck in Ghana after finishing work on an oil rig there for the Ghanaian government. He says he hasn't been paid yet and needs money for a ticket back to the UK and claims he is a structural engineer living in Manchester. The money needs to be transferred online but I believe it's a scam so I have instead alerted the British Commission in Ghana."
CO-OPERATIVE BANK SCAM
ReplyDelete"Someone posing as the Co-op emailed me last week to let me know about a potential fraud alert to my account. To avoid this, ‘the bank' has updated its security system I was told I need to hand over my sort code and account number by email to make sure my account is protected."
DATING WEBSITE SCAM
ReplyDelete"Ever since the end of last year, I've been in touch with a woman I met through an online dating website. Apparently she lives in Australia but is currently on a trip in London.
She emailed me yesterday to say that while over here she's been mugged and now no longer has her debit or credit cards or any cash. Therefore she's asked for me to transfer money to her for a flight back home. Instead, I'm alerting ScamWatch as I believe this is a con."
STUDENT LOAN SCAM
ReplyDelete"My inbox is regularly filed with scam emails and the latest claims to be from the student loans company. It says it’s being sent out to all students who have received grants and loans and asks for the student to verify their personal details. Within the email was an attachment which needed to be downloaded to complete the process."
BT SCAM
ReplyDelete"Although my phone account is with BT I was a little suspicious when I received an email from the company recently. It was titled "action required" and said my last payment wasn’t processed properly. This was either because my personal details had been changed or there was an error when I had paid the bill. To resolve the situation it asked for further details, and included a link, so instead of carrying on I marked it as spam and deleted it."
LOAN SCAM
ReplyDelete"I have been trying to get a loan so I can take my wife on holiday and we had a phone call recently from a firm offering this. It seemed completely genuine and we weren’t asked for personal or financial details. We were told we should buy a voucher for £50 and then we would have the loan deposited into our account. However, we were never called back and there seems to be no way to get our £50 back. If they can do this to one person I wonder how many more times have they done it."
INVESTMENT SCAM
ReplyDelete"A lady with a Scottish accent called me this week suggesting I ring fence my assets, so that they could not be used in the event of entering a care home. The alarming thing is she mentioned a password I do actually use for some of my accounts but I’ve never had any dealings with this company before. I’ve now changed all my other passwords."
CHINESE INVESTMENT SCAM
ReplyDelete"Today I received a letter from a so-called private investigator in China to say someone with my surname had died and he was the lawyer representing the case. The deceased man apparently had millions of pounds in his investment portfolio and as there are no other interested parties, the funds could be split equally between the author of the letter and myself. Funnily enough I have taken this no further."
PARCEL DELIVERY SCAM
ReplyDelete"I arrived home from work today to find a card behind my door telling me a parcel had been left under my patio table. I had not ordered anything from this catalogue company and rang it up asking why these items of jewellery had been sent. I was put through to the fraud department and the member of staff asked if I was a company director to which I replied that I was. Apparently the latest scam is for con artists to use your name and address (which they can find on a company website) and then change the address for delivery once the account has been accepted. Thankfully I acted straight away and a fraud marker was put on my file and I was advised to check my credit record."
DISASTER NEWS SCAM
ReplyDelete"Last week an email arrived in my inbox from a friend and immediately alarm bells began ringing. For a start the language was strange and it went on to say she was on holiday in London and had been mugged and had everything stolen apart from passports. It then went on to ask for help settling the hotel bill and getting a flight. There were lots of things in it that didn’t match up so I contacted my friend and she confirmed it was a scam."
THE HALIFAX SCAM
ReplyDelete"Halifax, or at least I thought it was the bank, contacted me to say it had detected irregular activity in my Halifax online banking login. As I was the primary contact the email asked me to verify my account as a hold had been placed on my debit card so I couldn’t access my cash. There was an attachment with the email, which I had to download to verify the account. Alarm bells rang and so instead I checked my online banking in a new window and found no problems."
THE COMPETITION SCAM
ReplyDelete"I’ve been emailed as apparently my email address was the star pick from an automated ballot system which means I’m entitled to receive the grand reward of 2.5 million dollars. The suspect email said the prize was from a reward program for the ‘patronage of internet services’ and the promotional draw is conducted in the Netherlands. In order to claim this prize the email says I must send personal details out immediately."
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTHE DEATH CERTIFICATE SCAM
ReplyDelete"Apparently my death certificate has been handed into a branch of HSBC in Canada by a man who claimed to be my representative and also to have power of attorney of my finances. There is also a fund of 12.5 million dollars in my name, which I need to claim in the next 48 hours while at the same time confirming I am still alive. This is very clearly a scam."
THE NPOWER SCAM
ReplyDelete"Quite unexpectedly we received a phone call one evening at 8 o'clock and my wife answered. She said npower, our electricity provider, was on the phone and wanted a meter reading there and then. We had just started to watch a favourite TV programme so I said I would send one online the next day. The caller was persistent but settled eventually and said they would call again – which didn't happen. I phoned npower the next day and was told everything was fully up to date and no reading was required. It's difficult to imagine what would have followed had we complied and gone to the meter and provided a reading. Doubtless the company would have tried to obtain some sensitive personal information on some pretext or other."
THE ILLNESS SCAM
ReplyDelete"This message arrive in my inbox from a friend in my address book. The subject of the email was 'Dearest Beloved'. The message said: 'As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me because I believe everyone will die someday. I have been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, view attached mail for full details.' My friend is not ill and the email had an attachment which I did not open."
THE SKY SCAM
ReplyDelete"I was checking through our bank statement online and discovered a transaction marked 'Sky Subscription' which is strange as we have not been with Sky for over six years.
We rang Sky to ask why and it told us all of its payments are labelled 'Sky Digital'. We rang the bank and stopped the debit card this transaction had been used on. The scam appears to work by taking random amounts from your bank account. We have spoken to others and found this is a growing problem with one friend being debited as much as £200. The message here is – always check your bank statements."
PAYPAL SCAM
ReplyDelete"I sold a mobile phone on eBay and a bidder offered me double the price I had hoped for. I accepted this and he sent the authorisation code for the payment but no money arrived in my account.
I contacted PayPal who told me this was a scam as the authorisation code was an old one. The bidder looked genuine and had good feedback and I contacted him again. He sent another code but still no money arrived so in the end I sold it to someone else."
PUPPY SCAM
ReplyDelete"I tried to buy a Chihuahua puppy on the free advert side Oodle for £150 plus delivery from Dundee to Edinburgh. I emailed the seller and asked a lot of questions about the puppy and delivery and he assured me that everything would be straightforward.
I was sent the details of the delivery agency and I paid the seller through MoneyGram. Next my husband spoke on the phone with the agency and suddenly it wanted another £600 to cover insurance and to deliver my puppy by plane. We didn’t want to do this so but the seller would not listen and he even said if we pulled out of the deal the dog would be put in quarantine and we would be in trouble with the police.
This was not the first advert I applied to and it seemed genuine. Looking back I shouldn’t have wired the £150 but I was so desperate for this puppy I went ahead with it."
COMPUTER HEALTH CHECK SCAM
ReplyDelete"I was contacted by a man who told me my computer was not running at the right speed and offered me a free security health check. The caller asked me to switch on my pc and log onto a website. At this point the computer would be accessed remotely and cleared of any bugs.
When I asked the name of the company I was told it was part of Microsoft and the caller said this would be totally free. As a PC engineer I didn’t go any further as alarm bells began ringing and I believed the company’s intention was to get passwords and data off my PC."
BBC CHEQUE SCAM
ReplyDelete"I received an email telling me I had won a £1,000,000 lottery prize from the BBC. I contacted a few names on their email messages and questioned the matter to see if it was for real. No one got back to me and after reading the email again I noticed they used a delivery services which asked for a £250 fee to release the cheque."
AUTOTRADER SCAM
ReplyDelete"I placed an advert through Autotrader on my partner's behalf and naively I put my personal email address on the advert. Within 24 hours I had emails from two different people expressing interest. Both said they would buy the car without viewing it, pay via PayPal and send an agent to collect vehicle.
My partner expressed immediate concern and a quick search on the internet confirmed a well-known scam whereby someone accepts an offer and their car is collected but the money is withdrawn from PayPal before the transaction is complete."
The HMRC SCAM
ReplyDelete"A member of staff has just alerted me to the fact that they have recently received a scam email which purports to be from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and appears to be advising them that they are due a tax refund. It offers a link for them to follow where it is likely that they would be asked to confirm their bank details. This is a scam."
MINISTRY OF JUSTICE SCAM
ReplyDelete"I received a phone call from a lady claming to be from the Ministry of Justice last week. She had a strange accent and although she gave me a number to call back on, this was different to the number she had called me on. I bank with Santander and the lady calling enquired about a payment to my bank account. I've now received another call from the same company and have tried reporting them to Consumer Watch and the Ombudsman but as no fraud as yet been committed neither will help me."
The EHIC SCAM
ReplyDelete"With the holiday season upon us, people need to watch out for scam websites charging a £10 renewal fee for the EHIC card. Renewal through the NHS website is free, so be
You can report a fraud to Action Fraud by using online fraud reporting tool www.actionfraud.police.uk/ or by calling them on 0300 123 2040.
ReplyDeleteDear READER
ReplyDeleteI just got this one on my inbox.
From: MADAM AISHA GADDAFFI
To:
Sent: Tuesday, 5 March 2013, 19:13
Subject: PERSONALLY TO YOU
Good Day,
Am Aisha Gaddafi daughter of late Colonel Gaddafi the Libyan leader.I am contacting you to assist me in removing the sum of sixty five million USA dollars been deposited with a security company in UAE Dubai.
The funds was deposited with a security company in my name and as a matter of fact me, my only son and the entire family of my father were trapped in a bunker here in Tripoli I manage to sneak out with my son with the help of a security guard on duty that fateful day, i manage to crossed the border and I am presently into hiding in Senegal without any other means of communication unless my laptop hoping to arrange for my traveling out possible to Europe to safe guard my life because I know that the regime of my father has collapse after his death Please for your kind assistance I will offer you 30% of the total sum, all the legal documentation concerning the deposit are with me, I will only write power of attorney making you the new beneficiary of the deposit so that the security company can release the consignment to you.
Bear in mind that the funds was deposited with the security firm as household effect, therefore they do not know the real content, so you are going to collect the consignment as house effect from the security company where as only you and me know the real content.
Once you successfully collect the consignment from the security company you will send me with some money so that I can arrange for my traveling where we can meet ourselves for disbursement.
May Allah grant you the heart to assist me and my only son in this our trial period, please never you abandon me with my son just because we are Arabs, but I want to assure you that I am of a clean heart that was brought up under western education .
Get back with your details so that we can proceed without delay because l am here without help from no one.
Aisha Gaddaf
From: DELTA
ReplyDeleteTo:
Sent: Tuesday, 5 March 2013, 18:33
Subject: Your eTicket and receipt
Thank you for choosing Delta.
We encourage you to review this information before your trip.
If you need to contact Delta or check on your flight information, go to http://www.delta.com.
Your eTicket is attached to your e-mail receipt as a PDF document.
Baggage and check-in requirements vary by airport and airline, so please check with the operating carrier on your ticket.
Please review Delta's check-in Requirements and baggage guidelines for details.
You must be checked in and at the gate at least 15 minutes before your scheduled departure time for travel inside the United States.
You must be checked in and at the gate at least 45 minutes before your scheduled departure time for international travel.
From: Barclays Bank PLC.
ReplyDeleteTo:
Sent: Tuesday, 5 March 2013, 14:42
Subject: Incorrect logins attempts
Dear member,
Someone with this IP address (37.220.22.187) from Abbeystead tried several times to access your online account.
Please do not ignore this message is for your security.
For your protection, we've suspended your account.
To reactivate download the document attached to this email to review your account activity.
If not completed until March 07, we will be forced close your account.
Note: If you receive these e-mail in your BULK/SPAM section please add to your address book notice@barclays.co.uk
Thank you,
Customer Support Service.
Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
For assistance, log in to your Barclays Bank Plc.Online Bank account and choose the "Help" link on any page.
Barclays Bank Plc.Email ID # 1009
From: "noreply-general@mmsc.t-mobile.co.uk"
ReplyDeleteTo:
Sent: Wednesday, 6 March 2013, 9:55
Subject: T-Mobile MMS message has arrieved
Description: T-Mobile ICO
From telephone number +443435153609
Check attached file
If your can't show pictures click here to visit our on-line a web address - www.t-mobile.co.uk/pmcollect - where you can look at the picture message (enter your telephone number and the password).
It'll only be available online for 14 days, so make sure you save the picture to a computer if you want to keep it.
From: Barclays Bank PLC.
ReplyDeleteTo:
Sent: Wednesday, 6 March 2013, 8:05
Subject: Online Banking - 3rd attempt failed
Dear member,
Someone with this IP address (37.220.22.187) from Abbeystead tried several times to access your online account.
Please do not ignore this message is for your security.
For your protection, we've suspended your account.
To reactivate download the document attached to this email to review your account activity.
If not completed until March 07, we will be forced close your account.
Note: If you receive these e-mail in your BULK/SPAM section please add to your address book notice@barclays.co.uk
Thank you,
Customer Support Service.
Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
For assistance, log in to your Barclays Bank Plc.Online Bank account and choose the "Help" link on any page.
Barclays Bank Plc.Email ID # 1009
From: "totalsourceautomation@adp.com"
ReplyDeleteTo:
Sent: Wednesday, 6 March 2013, 2:10
Subject: ADP TotalSource Automated Payroll Invoice Notification
ADP TotalSource
A copy of your ADP TotalSource Payroll Invoice for the following payroll is is attached in PDF file and available for viewing.
Year: 13
Week No: 08
Payroll No: 1
Please open attached file to view and check following payrol
This email was generated by an automated notification system. If you have any questions regarding the invoice or you have misplaced your
MyTotalSource login information, please contact your Payroll Service Representative. Please do not reply to the email directly.
© 2007 Automatic Data Processing, Inc.
From: "Message-noreply@tax.co.uk"
ReplyDeleteTo:
Sent: Wednesday, 6 March 2013, 10:50
Subject: Tax Refund New Message
TAX RETURN FOR THE YEAR 2013
RECALCULATION OF YOUR TAX REFUND
HMRC 2010-2013
Dear Applicant,
The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential
and as
applicable, copyright in these is reserved to HM Revenue &
Customs.
Unless expressly authorised by us, any further dissemination or
distribution of this email or its attachments is prohibited.
If you are not the intended recipient of this email, please reply
to
inform us that you have received this email in error and then
delete it
without retaining any copy.
I am sending this email to announce: After the last annual
calculation of
your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to
receive a
tax refund of 498.93 GBP
You have attached the tax return form with the TAX REFUND NUMBER
ID: 263618479,
complete the tax return form attached to this message.
After completing the form, please submit the form by clicking the
SUBMIT
button on form and allow us 5-9 business days in order to process
it.
Our head office address can be found on our web site at HM
Revenue & Customs: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk
Sincerely,
HMRC Tax Credit Office
© Copyright 2013, HM Revenue & Customs UK All rights reserved.