Rinoa Poison: Scambaiter

Someone calls saying they’re from a trusted organisation, like a bank, building society, or the police.

They explain your money is at risk – that a security breach has affected your account.

They reassure you that your money will be protected if you move it now to a ‘safe account’ they’ve set up for you.

It’s you who moves that money, not them. And it’s money you’ve lost for good.

Note:

Never act on a call out of the blue and transfer money at the request of a caller. A genuine organisation would never ask you to do this.

Someone calls saying they’re from a broadband or telecoms provider.
You may even hold an account with them. They say there’s an issue with
your computer and can fix it if you give them remote access (access your
computer from their location). They’ll tell you there’s compensation
for the inconvenience, and will ask you to log in to your internet bank.

At this point, they claim to have made a mistake and paid you too
much. What they actually do is transfer money from your savings account
to your current account. It looks like a refund has credited your
current account. You won’t know this, though, and they’ll ask you to
transfer the over payment of the ‘refund’ back to them.

Next thing you know, you’re using your security details to send your
money to them. And just like that, a large sum of your money is gone.

Note:

Don’t get rushed into allowing remote access. Be sure who you are dealing with. Never log in to your internet bank account while someone has remote access to your device.

You find a real bargain online, like a car, mobile, or concert tickets. The seller wants you to use a different, less secure payment method, than the one the website advises. It’s a method that won’t protect you if things go wrong.

You’ve been emailing the seller all along, so you believe everything should be fine. But as soon as you’ve moved the money from your account, the emails from the seller stop. And that bargain you set your heart on never turns up.

Note:

Always use a reputable website or app to buy goods. For more expensive purchases, make sure you see what you’re buying before parting with any money.

You have a genuine relationship with a person or company like a builder or a solicitor.

You get an email from them saying that you need to make a payment. It may tell you that their bank details have changed. You’re expecting to pay them, so you think nothing of it and make the payment.

You later discover that the request was fraudulent. Often, this is because someone has hacked the person’s or company’s email address or database.

Note:

Fake invoices sent over email can be very convincing. If you receive a request for payment, always get in touch using the original contact details you have. Make sure it’s a genuine request before transferring any money.

Someone who looks like a tradesperson comes to your home and tells you urgent work needs to be done (like to your roof or driveway). This work may not even be necessary.

Typical scam outcomes are they:

• Overcharge you for their work.
• Convince you to make full payment for partially completed work or materials.

You pay them and never see them, or your money, again.

Note:

Don’t feel rushed to get work done by someone knocking on your door. Take your time, do your research, and get several quotes before making any decision.

Someone will contact you about a loan you’ve been interested in, goods, or a lottery win. They’ll ask you to pay an upfront fee before releasing the item to you.

You make the payment but never get what they promised.

Note:

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Always do some research into whether any offer you’ve got is genuine.

You meet someone new online. But can you be sure they are genuine?

Maybe they’re in another country and say they need financial help to:

• Care for someone close to them.
• Avoid persecution.
• Cover travel expenses to visit you.

They’ve earned your trust. You’ve developed strong feelings. What’s to stop you transferring large sums of money to them? And how would you feel if you never heard from them again immediately afterwards?

Note:

Keep conversations through a reputable dating agency. Never send money to or receive money from someone you’ve only ever met online.

Someone calls you claiming to be from your building society or bank, or the police. They might claim there’s an issue with your bank account, or ask for your help with a bank or police investigation.

As part of a fake investigation, you may be asked to take out money or to buy something. The person is just tricking you into giving them money or goods.

Note:

Do not give out details, like your card number or PIN. Never take out money or buy goods for someone who claims it’s for an investigation. A genuine organisation would never ask you to do this.

Sometimes people unknowingly help criminals move stolen money. They effectively become ‘money mules’.

You’ll see what looks like a genuine job advertised online, by email or on social media. It seems like a great chance to earn money for a few hours of work a week. But any money you receive could be from the proceeds of crime.

If you get involved, it could result in a criminal prosecution or your bank freezing your account. This could make banking and getting credit difficult for you in future.

Note:

A genuine company will never ask you to use your bank account to transfer their money. Don’t accept any jobs that ask you to do this. Be especially cautious of job offers from people or companies overseas. This makes it harder for you to find out if they are genuine.

AnyDesk is used legitimately by millions of IT professionals worldwide, to remotely connect to their clients’ devices to help with technical issues. However, scammers can try to misuse AnyDesk (or any other remote access software) to connect to your computer and steal data, access codes, and even money.

1. Rule Number One

Never give anyone you don’t know access to your devices.

2. Rule Number Two

Never share online banking login details or any passwords with anyone.

TeamViewer is a legitimate remote access and remote control computer software, allowing maintenance of computers and other devices.

Scam callers often ask you to download a copy of Team Viewer, so they can access your computer.

If you have experienced or suspect a case of malicious use of TeamViewer, please contact our privacy team via the report a scam form on this page: Report a TeamViewer Scam

UltraViewer is a legitimate remote desktop software that helps you to remote control your client’s computer to support them like you’re sitting in front of the screen.

Scam callers often ask you to download a copy of UltraViewer, so they can access your computer.

Cash App is a mobile payment service developed by Block, Inc., that allows users to transfer money to one another using a mobile-phone app. The service is available only in United Kingdom and the United States.

Fraudsters attempt to steal customer data using fake phone numbers and emails, pretending to be a Cash App representative.

No one representing Cash App will ever ask for your sign-in code over the phone, on social media, or through any other medium.

We will never ask for you to send us a payment or provide sensitive information such as your full bank account information or Social Security Number

SpyEye was a malware program that attacked users running Google Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows operating systems.
The malware used keystroke logging and form grabbing to steal user credentials for malicious use. SpyEye allowed hackers to steal money from online bank accounts and initiate transactions even while valid users are logged into their bank account.

SpyEye emanated from Russia in 2009 – it’s authors have since been arrested.

If a tech support agent tells you that SpyEye is on your system in 2022, it’s a huge red flag that’s it actually a scam call

Netstat is a legitimate command-line network utility that displays network connections for Transmission Control Protocol, routing tables, and a number of network interface and network protocol statistics.

Scammers will get you to enter netstat as a command (see above example) and then they will try to make you believe that you have hackers on your computer or network, due to the the scan results showing “Foreign Address” or “Listening“.

Spoof or phishing emails are fraudulent emails attempting to get your personal information. They are generally made to look like they are coming from Amazon. If you receive an e-mail claiming to be from Amazon, and you suspect it is a spoof or phishing e-mail, here are some things you can look out for:

• Amazon will never ask for personal information to be supplied by e-mail.
• Amazon will never request to update payment information that is not linked to an Amazon order you placed or an Amazon service you subscribed to.

If you receive a suspicious phone call claiming to be from Amazon, here are some things you can look out for:

• Amazon will never ask for payment or offer you a refund you do not expect.
• Amazon will never ask you to make a payment outside of our website (e.g. via bank transfer, e-mailing credit card details, sharing gift card details over the phone, etc.)
• Amazon will never ask you for remote access to your device e.g. by asking you to install an app.

Police in Alabama are warning people about an email scam designed to look like it comes from Best Buy’s “Geek Squad.”

Scottsboro Police said the department has received two reports of the email in the past two weeks. The email is made to look like it comes from Geek Squad, a technical service department of tech store chain Best Buy. It claims the Geek Squad has automatically renewed its protection subscription at a cost of $499.99 with a fake invoice number, renewal date and service name.

“It must be ignored. Geek Squad has nothing to do with this letter,” Scottsboro police said.

The purpose of the scam is to trick recipients into calling the provided number – 1-808-666-6112 – and then providing personal information such as full names, credit card details and social security numbers or pay a “cancellation” fee. In other cases, the scammers attempt to trick users into downloading malware or providing remote access to their computers.

If you receive the email, the best thing you can do is hit delete.

Share on Pinterest Email

Medicare scams cost seniors billions each year. Watch for these warning signs that a Medicare solicitation might not be legitimate.

Medicare scams cost consumers and the government billions each year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. Falling for one of these scams may mean paying for services you do not receive, missing the Medicare enrollment period because you enrolled in a fake plan, or giving away information that enables a criminal to steal your identity.

Some Medicare scam warning signs include:

Aggressive or threatening tactics

Fraudulent sellers of Medicare plans may call many times throughout the day, leave numerous voice mails, or call you back even after you hang up.

Some use threats to gain compliance. For example, a caller might tell you that your Medicare plan will be canceled if you do not give them your information, or threaten to have you arrested if you don’t verify your identity. The government will not call you and threaten you about your Medicare plan.

Unsolicited phone calls

Medicare scammers may pretend to work for the government or claim to represent legitimate insurance companies. They can even change their caller identification information to make it look like they are calling from your local Medicare office.

The government will not call you to sell you a Medicare plan.

Identity verification

Fake “identity verification” scams are an easy way for criminals to get your Social Security number, full name, home address, and other information that enables them to steal your identity. Sometimes they even ask for a credit card number for verification purposes, as a way to access your financial accounts.

Medicare does not contact consumers over the phone or email seeking to verify their identities or get credit card information. If you’re not sure whether a call is real, contact Medicare directly on The Official U.S. Government Site for Medicare online or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE. You can ask if the agency has recently contacted you.

Email solicitations

A few simple design tools can make an email look like it came from Medicare or an insurance provider. Scammers can even spoof Medicare email addresses, or redirect you to a web page that looks identical to the real Medicare page.

Never give personal information to someone who contacts you via email, even if they seem legitimate. Instead, log in to your Medicare or insurance account to update your information and verify your data. Do not log in to this account by following links in email, since doing so may redirect you to a fake page.

Mail solicitation

While some Medicare plans and service providers may contact you through the mail, many scammers also send fake plan documents. Rather than directly responding using the contact information listed in direct mailings, research plans on the Medicare page or on your preferred Medicare Advantage insurer’s website. You can enroll in Medicare online or at a local office, so there is no need to enroll via mail.

Zelle is a legitimate peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service that makes it easy to send money from one bank account to another. It’s a United States–based digital payments network owned by Early Warning Services, LLC, a private financial services company owned by the banks Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo.

Zelle scams mostly rely on social engineering, where a scammer builds trust so that the target will send money willingly. Similar scams have plagued banks and older payment services like PayPal for years.

One of the most common scams starts with a fake text message that requests approval for a pending transaction or issues a warning about fraudulent activity on an account. When users interact with the message (usually texting back “no” as instructed) they receive a phone call from what seems to be a legitimate financial organization. Scammers can spoof phone numbers so that the number that’s calling appears to match up with a bank or credit union.

From here, the scam takes a turn. Targets are informed that a thief is trying to empty their bank account and that they need to transfer money back into their account to be safe. Ideal targets do not already use Zelle, which provides would-be scammers the opportunity to link their bank accounts to a target’s phone number. To do this, the scammer will walk the target through the two-factor authentication process and ask them to read out the verification code that’s sent to the victim’s phone.

With the victim’s phone number attached to the fraudster’s account, the scammer will then initiate the final stage of the scam: getting the victim to send money to their own phone number. Since the phone number is now associated with the scammer, the money is finally leaving the target’s account. Scammers will often try the same trick multiple times, requesting repeat transactions to “recover” lost funds.

The scam mostly affects those who don’t already use Zelle, who don’t have a tech-savvy background, and who believe that there’s no way sending money to their personal phone number could play into the hands of a scammer.

A fake tech scammer will sometimes ask you to access the windows Command Prompt and type “dir /s” – The command “dir” by itself simply lists the contents of the current directory or folder. Adding the “/s” switch to that command makes it list the contents of the current directory and the contents of all the folders inside that directory. A fake tech will claim that this command lists infected files on the computer’s hard drive:

A fake tech scammer will sometimes ask you to access the windows Command Prompt and type “tree” – The command “tree” by itself simply lists current directory or folders. A fake tech will claim that this command lists infected files on the computer’s hard drive:

Scammers send you an email saying your Norton account is expiring or it is time to renew your subscription. The fraudulent message may ask you to call a bogus customer support number or urge you to click on a link. The goal is to steal your money or personal information. Scam emails can include warnings about expired antivirus settings or an infection on your computer. They can also falsely state your Norton subscription was renewed and may include a fake invoice or billing information. Most include an urgent request that you contact someone, ask you to sign on to a fraudulent site, open an attachment, call an 800 number, or respond with personal or account information.

These fake emails use a technique called ‘phishing’. Phishing gets its name because the technique involves ‘fishing’ for passwords, usernames, and other sensitive information. These phishing emails often include links that, if clicked, can introduce malware to your computer.

There are many ways that you can spot phishing emails. For example, they often include spelling and grammar mistakes, or suspicious links and attachments. When you have suspicions about an email that supposedly comes from McAfee, look carefully at the email address and the domain from where the email was sent. When you examine the sender’s address, if you see that the email doesn’t originate from .mcafee.com, it is highly likely to be fake and you should delete the email without clicking any links.

NOTE: Be aware that, sometimes, companies do use different domains to send emails, and some smaller companies use third-party email providers.

McAfee sends email communications from several email domains and for different purposes. Emails are sent for product activations, adding devices through McAfee My Account, email address verification, and so on.

To help you identify legitimate McAfee emails, the list below shows the email addresses and domains that McAfee sends genuine customer communication from:

communication.mcafee.com
info@authentication.mcafee.com
Info@notification.mcafee.com
info@protect.mcafee.com
info@smmktg.mcafee.com
info@smtx.mcafee.com