Our school always tells us when a message like that is coming. I appreciate the advanced notice.
A good rule to have is to never transfer money based on just an email request. Pick up the phone to confirm.
If I get a message I am unsure about at work, I forward to our IT department and let them figure out if its legit.
And if I am not at work, I forward to my other IT dept which is (and has been since he was about 10), my son.
I feel like I have a pretty good eye for scams- the language is frequently stilted or something is always off. DD has received a couple aimed at graphic designers- I’ve been able to google a sentence from the email, or the email address, and find that others have posted about it being a scam. I appreciate those that took time to share it somewhere. DD had thought one guy seemed pretty legit until it came time to talk about payment methods. She was just excited to think she had a decent freelance job.
I think I mentioned that our daughter was almost scammed, looking for an apartment. The guy said he was subletting his apartment. He was so good that D got a confirmation letter supposedly from the apartment building with an email address that looked legit - “JaneSmith@ApartmentName.com.” I had looked at the emails and nothing seemed off, until he told her she couldn’t look at the apartment ahead of time because he had moved out of state unexpectedly. So she called the apartment building directly and they told her he’s been pulling this scam for awhile now. They try to notify sites when they see his posts, but it’s hard to catch all of them. Unbelievable.
Scammers are definitely getting better unfortunately.
My oldest who gets paid to stream games thought his job offer was a scam TBH. Who pays someone a real salary to to stream games? Now it might be more common, but not long ago it wasn’t. Nonetheless he was intrigued enough to check into it cautiously and is glad he did. He told us he only knew it was 100% real when they sent him the tax forms to fill out for employment. Even then, he breathed a sigh of relief when the first paycheck was in the bank.
Prior to streaming games he was in corporate IT helping people with all sorts of computer problems, so he’s seen a ton and had to fix it.
One has to walk a fine line checking anything that sounds good out.
Scammers are getting more sophisticated and using better English. Been getting phishing emails recently purportedly from PayPal that my account has been compromised and that they need to verify some info. The logo looks legit and no glaring grammatical errors. I went directly to my account to see if there was a notification there – no. Same thing has happened to my wife but in the form of telephone calls/messages. So for any emails/calls from financial institutions (bank, credit card, etc…), definitely go to your account directly or call the institution on the number on their website, not the call back number in the email or phone message.
I laughed at the one I got this morning from the “Justice Department”. After warning me that I was about to be arrested, they signed the email as Best Regards, Justice Department. Uh huh.
A friend’s mom who was teacher got an email from the school superintendent. She was asked to buy few $100 amazon gift cards for a award ceremony they were having. It sounded very legit and it was from the superintendent. This emailer had a lot of detail information about the school and friend’s mom because he had hacked into the superintendent’s email account. He was reading everything.
They exchanged few more emails about the logistic. It wasn’t until they got to a point where the superintendent said after she got the cards she was to scratch off the back to get the code that she became suspicious. She emailed this person back, “Can you tell me where we met for the first time.” She and the superintendent were teachers at some point and they met at some special event. The emailer couldn’t answer the question.
I got one of those recordings on the phone saying we were about to be persecuted for Social Security fraud and we should call a phone number. The recording ended, “Have a nice day!” Ha.
There are so many scams, and some seem very believable. Last night I was ready to ignore an email that promised me Amazon Prime credit. But then I got curious and logged on to my account (NOT from the email link) … and it does show $5 credit. Is this a thing?
I get these ALL the time, no matter how many times I block the phone number. Recently, they’ve started spoofing numbers with the same area code as me. At this point, I just say “Oh another spam” and block the phone number----it’s become second nature :lol:
IIRC official governmental communication (like from the Social Security Administration) will always come by USPS.
Yes, it’s a scam. I received a similar email last year from a friend I talk to often. So I called her about it. She didn’t send it. My friend’s email and some other accounts had been hacked. It was a mess for her.
I have also recently gotten the social security bogus phone calls.
There is something called “Spear Phishing”. A Phishing attack is similar to the social security call I got earlier this week – it is the same bogus phone call going to everyone. Spear Phishing is a Phishing attack that is aimed at one person, and takes advantage of some information that the attacker has managed to find out about that person. Spear Phishing is far more carefully crafted and more carefully aimed than regular phishing.
To me this sounds like Spear Phishing. In other words, my guess is that it is a scam. I would never send money without talking to the actual person who I am allegedly helping.
I literally just got one of the SSN calls. I set the phone aside to play out until they hung up and told the kids that at least I don’t have to worry about using my SSN anymore now that it’s been deactivated.
I have not read all of this but download superantispyware and run it. https://www.superantispyware.com/
This will cleanup whatever the email left behind.
Don’t click or answer emails that are like this. If someone like this needs something they will find you and call you.
Got an email from Google Pay (which I don’t use) that a card was added to my account. Didn’t follow any links, but logged in and there was a new card there that didn’t align with any of my credit cards. Deleted the card and changed my password. There was no activity.
Anyone else have something similar happen?
I love the recorded voice mail, in a heavily accented voice, telling me I owe money to the IRS, and if I do not call the given number, the IRS will “call the cops” on me.
I do not believe the IRS would in an official communication use the expression “call the cops”!!
I’ve gotten the ss # being deactivated one a number of times. The first time I said out loud “I don’t think that’s actually a thing” and hung up. Also frequently one with someone speaking in Chinese (?). Most come from spoofed local numbers. I confirm it’s a scam by asking my husband if he’s gotten it and usually he has at about the same time from a different number.
Twice this week, I’ve gotten a texted link purporting to be from the US Census Office asking me to participate in a survey about Covid-19 and its effects on my household. It starts fairly innocuous, but then asks for sensitive data like your age, income and personally identifying data–like name, address and SSN. My D got the same text earlier today.