Scammers

[wasdale32]

I used to get a lot of "Have you had an accident that wasn't your fault?" calls at work - my usual response was to ask "is that the one in which I died?" which always threw them and amused my office (remember them?) colleagues.

Working at home if I get a human being on the call I've taken to telling them I'm expecting a call on this line and can they ring back on my other line - I then give them the number of the local police cyber crime unit to call. Hopefully at least one of them falls for it.

[Guest]

If I read you right, I can find the true source of an email by hovering my pointer over the sender's name - yes? If so that's really useful thanks.

Not e-mail addresses, but the real site to which a link in the e-mail points. As you can see in the screenshot I posted, the link you can see in the message actually points to an entirely different site than it looks like it does.

This can work for e-mail addresses if they’re inside the message body, but not for the address(es) at the top of it (“From” etc.).

Yes. It is Windows 10 I'm using. I wonder why they took the spam filter off?

That’s always the question when software developers remove useful features …

Any suggestions for a better system?

I’ve not used mail on a Windows PC for about 20 years, so unfortunately, no

[Guest]

All three numbers are now blocked.....

That’s probably pointless because they’re almost guaranteed to have been spoofed, and likely just a random number anyway. On the other hand, of course, the real owner of the number (if there is one) is unlikely to ever call you, so it’s not going to be much of a problem.

I get a fair number (once every couple of weeks at least) phone calls with foreign numbers. If I answer, either there’s a bit of silence and the line disconnects, or someone begins speaking in English with a South Asian accent, using words like “Microsoft” and “tech support”. At that point I just hang up.

[stillp]

Look I have to earn a living, how on earth do you expect me to support one wife, four dogs and a model stash - have some sympathy. All I ask is that you send me your card details......

Sorry Mike. I'll put you in touch with a friend who can help you out - he's a Nigerian prince, worth millions.
Pete

[Guest]

That reminds me Years ago, in World of Warcraft you’d get people striking up a conversation with you in order to try and sell you gold (in-game money), for which they would charge real money at some exchange rate — 100 gold per US$1 or something. This quickly got very tiring, so after a while, I bookmarked a web site with real messages from Nigerian scammers. Every time one of these gold sellers approached me, I’d switch to my web browser, open that site and choose a random scammer’s letter on it. Then in reply to whatever the gold seller said to me, I would copy and paste a line from that message, starting at the top and working my way down. Most gave up before I was a couple of lines in

[wasdale32]

That reminds me :smiling3: Years ago, in World of Warcraft you’d get people striking up a conversation with you in order to try and sell you gold (in-game money), for which they would charge real money at some exchange rate — 100 gold per US$1 or something. This quickly got very tiring, so after a while, I bookmarked a web site with real messages from Nigerian scammers. Every time one of these gold sellers approached me, I’d switch to my web browser, open that site and choose a random scammer’s letter on it. Then in reply to whatever the gold seller said to me, I would copy and paste a line from that message, starting at the top and working my way down. Most gave up before I was a couple of lines in :smiling3:

I keep a folder of "To Good To Be True..." emails at work - the best is probably the one offering off-prescription meds that claimed to "dramatically increase organism"