Phishing Alert: Voucher Payment Scam

The following email is currently doing the rounds:

Dear Customer,

As a new system of promoting our shop, we are giving out exclusive vouchers as bonus
to our customers. Please follow the logon link to claim your voucher and please note
it will take upto 7 days to reflect in your account.

Log On

Please do not reply to this message. For questions, please call Customer Service.
We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Copyright © 1999-2012 Shop direct. All rights reserved.
Please do not reply to this e-mail as this is only a notification. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.

THIS IS A SCAM: clicking on the links will take you to a fake page that harvests your personal information.

Have you had any similar emails recently?  We’ve heard of this email seemly being sent from Littlewoods and Very but we want to know if you’ve received it from any other sources.

The following email has been circulating recently.  One of the characteristics of the email is that it’s often sent “from” the same recipient as it was sent to, so it looks like it was sent from you!  This is an easy trick to perform on an email server.

Here’s the email in question.  Let us know if you receive anything similar.

Our company is concerned with the developing and promotion of different web media projects and acting as consultants on modern green tech, renewables and alternate energy sources.

We’re seeking out self-motivated people from the aforementioned countries to be representatives to our company.

Requirements:

- You need to own a company or help run a company and have power of attorney over it.  If not, you must agree to begin a company shortly.

- You must be a citizen of one of the aforementioned countries.

- You need to hold a certificate of completion from a reputable higher level institution

- You also need to speak English fluently enough for us to be able to talk and understand each other.

- It’s a definite addition if you hold a long and upstanding relationship with financial institutions from your area.

- Load of work consists of 3-4 hours daily in the first 2 months and 2-3 hours daily, from that point onward.

- Terms of our partnership is at least for a year with the possibility certainly existing for 2 years.

Mainly you will be engaging in dealing with receivables from our selling.

Currently offering commission based on the amount of our sales.

Please DO NOT answer if you are NOT located in the above-mentioned countries !

Our contact: Alexis@consultingcouk.com,Thank You!

For those readers who helped to try and expose and highlight Champions League ticket scams, we would be interested to hear of other ticket scams especially Pop and Rock Concert ticket scams. We are sure people have paid well over the odds for their favourite Pop/Rock group but has anyone been scammed and not received tickets they purchased.

As you are all aware the London Olympics 2012 is now not that far away and no doubt there will be a lot of London Olympic 2012 ticket scams out there to cash in on this and take away your hard earned money. This is likely to be even more widespread due to the numbers of people who have applied and received tickets.

So if you hear of any scams or read anything that’s just too good to be true and could be suspicious let our readers know as soon as possible so that they can be warned against parting with their money for tickets that either do not exist or will never reach them.

If you receive an email from the “National Lottery” be careful. It might contain a Microsoft Word document that looks like the following. Delete it!!!!

Email supposedly from the National Lottery

 We got this report from one of our readers – interesting reading.  Make sure you don’t fall for this one… these guys never give up, they just get more and more devious.

“Anyone wishing to pay high prices for a Champions League ticket to watch Man Utd V Barcelona be warned.

I believe I have come across a scam which looks genuine as it suggests it is through eBay but it is not.

The ticket was initially advertised through eBay and although the price is high it is not as extortionate as a lot that have been advertised. However it mentions contacting the seller via email.

Contacted the seller and then noticed that the item had disappeared off eBay.

Contacted the seller to check this and confirm interest in buying at the price specified. They then sent an invoice which looks as though it genuinely comes from eBay as it has all the eBay stamps on it. It also has address details on it which make it look very genuine, even address details to make it look even more authentic!

However when you go into eBay there is no record of the transaction and the seller will not accept any payment other than through Western Union at a Western Union Agent Office. They will not accept any online payment through a secure method such as PayPal.

This seems to me very suspicious and people need to be on their guard against committing any funds until checking transaction thoroughly.

Although I did not go through with the transaction so cannot confirm whether this is genuine it suggests you would commit your money and not see any ticket arrive at your door.”

Be warned there are a lot of scams about!

British Gas Email Scam

Scam Details/Example Email

Here’s a new one – there’s now a scam that tries to fool punters into getting a free iPhone…

We at TheScambusters know you don’t get a free lunch, let alone a free iPhone, so when we heard they were being offered willy nilly on facebook we were interested.  It turns out that “rogue” apps that report user’s status as ‘just testing Facebook for iPhone” – and a link to a dodgy app.  Unsuspecting facebookers then click on the link and before they know it they’re sending out the same status message.  It’s one of a growing number of facebook spam apps that are trying to get cash from facebook users.  It might be worth checking any apps you’ve got in your facebook… Go to Application Settings in Facebook & remove those dirty apps!

Bogus callers posing as council staff are conning residents in West Chesire

Homeowners in West Cheshire are asked for banking details by people who claim they are in the wrong council tax bracket – saying they have paid too much or too little council tax.

The scammers call the unsuspecting residents asking for personal details, such as their mother’s maiden name and national insurance number.  They are then asked to provide current-account details so they can receive a refund, They then go on to ask for bank details so the council tax difference can either be paid back to the resident or take the money that’s owed to the council, or to avoid a fine for late payment.

Warnings have already been issued in Northumberland, Portsmouth, North Tyneside and Stafford.   Trading standards officers are now warning everyone to be on their guard and report any calls or e-mails to their council or police immediately.  For further advice or information on this scam please call Consumer Direct on 0845 404 0506.

We’re going to hunt down the scam loan companies.  Not the ones that actually dish out the cash, but the companies that help you find a lender.  There seems to be loads around.  We’re going to try and find the ones that are legit – those that won’t take your money and run.

If you have had any experience with loan finding/loan broker companies please let us know and we’ll check them out.  We’re going to be checking them out with the FSA and other bodies.

Please get in touch with your experiences too, we want to find out how many companies are operating out there – taking your hard earned cash.

Loan & Personal Finance Help

We found these pages & sites particularly useful:

• loanfinder uk scam
• Scam Loan Forum
• Personal finance Wiki – useful for information on scams etc.
• Credit Cards Debt Help
• Welcome Financial Services & Welcome Financial Services debt help

An new email virus that promises a link to free sex films is wreaking havoc today.

The virus, with the subject ‘Here you have’, is clogging systems with multiple emails after scanning victims’ address books.

It appears to be a PDF file that then tries to shut down your anti virus and mail itself to all your contacts.

McAfee explains:

When run, the virus installs itself to the Windows directory as CSRSS.EXE (not to be confused with the valid CSRSS.EXE file within the Windows System directory). Once infected the worm attempts to send the aforementioned message to email address book recipients. It can also spread through accessible remote machines, mapped drives, and removable media via Autorun replication.