This is happening in my state too. The county court website has posted a fraud alert to warn people of this scam. BTW most of the letters in the state seal don’t spell anything.
A court hearing for a parking ticket? In King County?! A parking violation is not even a traffic violation as far as I know. What a load of bull.
Ah! The old porn scare scam.
Yes, this one is over 10 years old. Such a lazy spammer — recycling an old one copied word-for-word from the original instead of coming up with something new. ![]()
My love got the same one, only in written form, rather than text. It said to appear in a Los Angeles court, and was “signed” by John Smith a Philadelphia judge ![]()
These spammers simply cannot help themselves.
That’s my favorite part!
That’s probably because the image was generated by ChatGPT 4.0, which had trouble generating letters within images. If you ask it to create an official looking letter with a seal, you’ll end up with something like that.
Hey, I was assigned the same judge in Illinois!
My 85 year old mother got one of those and laughed out loud. She said that, at her age, her friends and family wouldn’t be shocked that she was watching porn, they’d be amazed.
Ah, but this scam’s implication is that one is creating porn, not watching it.
I got a Save the Date for …. something! It is from a friend of mine but I do think it is a scam of some type. I tried to open it, it asked as if I wanted to use Outlook or other things and I picked Yahoo (it came in a yahoo email). Then it wanted my Yahoo password but Yahoo doesn’t really use passwords anymore (they send you a code) so I sent my friend an email asking if it was really her.
I don’t want to miss a good party, but I don’t want to open spam.
I’ve gotten two of those in the last month or so. Don’t open the links. These are not real.
I got one of those, too. It was from a friend whose wife died unexpectedly at 64 and we hadn’t heard from recently. I was excited he was having a party! Oops, not so much. Yeah, when they asked me for a password, I realized I’d been duped. Ugh.
This scam, supposedly from Punchbowl, has been circulating among our social group. The “tell” is that the invitation is from the host, not Punchbowl.
Easiest thing to do is reach out directly to the “host.”
That’s the one I got a few years ago.
Truth be told, I really don’t understand from this article what one is supposed to do if you receive an unordered item, other than be wary. Well, duh.
I’m receiving multiple emails from Australia recently. First was from a hotel, informing that my deposit will no longer be refundable unless I cancel before the set deadline. Now, I’m being asked to register for some type of Australian travel requirement paperwork before our upcoming trip. I wish! ![]()
Just got a punchbowl evicted from casual friend who lives in a different state. Sent him a text, asking if he sent me a punchbowl elite or if punchbowl/he had been hacked. No reply so I suspect a hack.
I received one of those–granddaughter-in-an-accident calls. First voice–a cry for help. Clearly the voice of a distraut young woman (AI?) Then, a “police officer” telling me (he used my first name) that my granddaughter was in a car accident. I hung up. I had heard of this scam, but the use of my first name creeped me out.
So scary! When my D was little we had a “safe word” in case someone tried to tell her she could leave school/daycare with them. I’m prepared to reenact that.
My GD and GS are still way too young to call me themselves – I’d know in a nanosecond it isn’t them – but I suppose in a few years we’ll need to use a safe word.
