Category: Scams

  • I was surfing your emails…

    Surfing my emails, eh...

    Should i be worried?

  • Your UPS Invoice is Ready – SCAM – Phishing Email – WARNING – Explained

    My spam box receives hundreds and hundreds of emails every day – on all my email accounts. Every now and then one slips the net (not that often though, thanks Gmail!) and due to me bein’ around these parts for a while i’m able to spot the warning signs that indicate that it is in fact a scam;

    ups_scam_phishing_email-top

    The email address looks legit, there are no formatting errors within the body text like previous scam emails have contained – from first glances this is a pretty convincing fake!

    So can you tell if its a fake?

    Place your mouse cursor over links but DO NOT CLICK ON THEM!

    ups_scam_phishing_email-middle

    Note the preview of where that links takes you?

    Im pretty sure UPS dont use n-moto.ru for their own website. In fact, the domain could be ups.ru for all i care, the .ru bit in it makes it (imo) stand out like a sore thumb.

    It must be horrible for the russian domain name authority – but if i see a .RU domain name extension i run for the hills. I know my personal site has a .im domain name extension but these are very rarely used for spam/dodgy sites – in fact the spam sites seem to keep their domain extension choices to a minimum.

    They either use .RU (Russia) or .CN (China) – probably because the chinese and russian governments don’t give a shit about what people do online from their countries.

    Anyway, if you are not expecting an email from UPS or any other delivery company/service or if ANYTHING – and if something arouses your suspicions – then google it, ask me, ask someone who knows more about these things – and if all else fails delete it and they will call you if its important!

    Thanks to GemmaBeans for sending me the email – she thought it looked dodgy and she was right!

  • Skype Payment Scam – Explained

    I’ve been around these parts (the Internet) since I was 13, and over those years i’ve noticed lots and lots of cyber scams in various shapes and forms – I find them funny to be honest as they are usually so poor, it amazes me people fall for them..

    I received a funny one today – thought i’d screenshot it and explain how its easy to tell its a scam;

    How to spot a scam!

    From the top down, firstly, the title of the email has a space before the exclamation mark. This is not proper grammar, and a company as large as Microsoft/Skype wouldn’t make such a schoolboy error.

    Next, the email address is “support@numberbook.com” which a) isn’t a Skype email and b) is sod all to do with Skype or Microsoft (MS own Skype now innit)

    Moving swiftly on, the wording of Skype and the orders@ email address are formatted so that its not picked up as an email address by spam filters, having a question mark instead of a fullstop and then not including the next full stop (before the UK) is again a huge error, and no reputable company would do that.

    The next part down is the same, the email addresses formatted so it still looks like an email, but spam filters wouldn’t be triggered.

    And finally, the last part of the email is the nail in the coffin IMO – PayPal is one word, not two – no official email from a huge company would make such an error – plus the “Pay Pal” link points to;

    hXXp://www.elrinconoculto.com/config.html (link nulled so you cant click)

    …Which is obviously not an official PayPal domain 🙂