Another e-mail scam.

I got BT to check mine out after I fell for the same scam when it first came out a couple of years ago.
It was ok, but I got a very stern ticking off from my kids. Made me feel about 6

I was the victim of a scam yesterday and I have been kicking myself ever since for being so gullible!! I hadn't heard of this before but some body from Microsoft rang to say my pc had flagged up more than 2000 errors on the main server and needed to log on to my pc. And I let him!!!! before cutting the call short as I felt very uncomfortable. He said he was going to provide a solution to the problem and wasn't selling anything. He seemed convincing!! I've googled it and it is a scam and apparently it has been on 'This Morning' on tv only in the last couple of weeks.

I rang my bank - they said not to worry as I wasn't logged on to my bank at the time, or anything else. But I am worrying - it all seems to be working as usual though. What an idiot I am for falling for it!!

Yesterday I received an e-mail purportedly coming from the same friend whose name was used for the Facebook scam. In it I was asked to sign a petition to stop French islanders using puppies and kittens as live bait for shark fishing.

I deleted the e-mail on the basis that it was too far fetched. I didn't believe the story about the kittens and puppies.

I just hope it was a scam. It would be too awful otherwise.

Almost every time I visit my DS and his partner there is a call from the scammers who tell them there's something wrong with their PC. Last time I answered one of these, I told him they had an Apple. No response to that. I think it was a poster on one of our forums that gave me that tip.

If you say "I can't continue until you have told me the 3rd and 5th characters of the password" it confuses them no end!

They also tell you, in a thick Indian acccent, that their name is "John" or "Rupert" or "Hank".

I keep meaning to reply "In the first minute you have told me three lies - that your name is X , that you are phoning from Windows, and that you think my computer has a virus. Why I should I believe anything else you tell me?" but I am afraid I have always slammed the phone down before I remember to say it.

I recently read advice on gransnet concerning unwanted phone calls from international call centres, I am being bombarded with calls suggesting that there is a problem with my computer. When I ask whom they are representing the answer is "windows", which I don't have. When I tell them this they ask" who are you with ?" They obviously know nothing about me or my computer. The letter I read from a gransnetter gave information on which phone button to press which would prevent the caller from making another call for some time. Can anyone remind me please! desperate...

A lot of these scams come from abroad - a lot from Nigeria sadly - so the English grammer is often poor and badly worded. This does help to determine a scam. I don't open anything unless I'm a %100 sure or have talked to my son. I know when I got my laptop my children were very worried that I'd be scammed and have drummed it into me to be very careful

Just this minute managed to avoid a Facebook scam. A post supposedly from one of my friends with a link to a webpage which told you how many people had viewed your profile recently. Unsuspecting, I opened the link and then found I had to go through a process giving personal details before I could view my information. Luckily when I tried to do this my security sytem warned me the website was dangerous and I opted out.

The noticed my friend had posted a message saying don't do this it's a scam.

Just received a new scam email. It came to my late DHs account, which I keep open because now and then a genuine message arrives from somone.

The header was "You have a new Private Message" and it appeared to come from Barclays. The message was

"Dear Barclays Client,

We have been receiving complaints from some of our customers
about unauthorised use of their online bank access.
Some invalid logon attempts into your online
account access was noticed and we and have therefore limited certain
online features until we verify your recent access.

Begin the Verification Process [This with a link to click on]

You are advised to strictly comply with this feature as
failure to do so may result in permanent account suspension.

Customer Service"

[The "was noticed and we and have" bit is theirs - a clue to it not being genuine, a real message would not be so badly written]

As we have never had any account with Barclays I ignored it and instead went to Fraudwatch. As I thought it is a scam (to induce people to go their fake site and enter their username and password. Note that there is absolutely nothing in their message to show that they are sending it to a particular customer, except the email address, which they could get from anywhere.

www.fraudwatchinternational.com/phishing/individual_alert.php?fa_no=240994&mode=alert

I think I just got caught by a phishing attempt, and they got my yahoo password before I cottoned on....see the thread about failure notices.

Perhaps he was living in hope, janthea

goldengirl I keep getting these hotel scams on my work email as does my boss! I just delete them. When we first got one, he emailed me asking what hotel had I booked for him and what was it for!! Bless!!

I've been getting emails about hotel booking confirmations which took me a second to cotton on to because I use hotels a fair bit of late. However this one doesn't give addresses, just dates and invites you to open the attachment which you obviously shouldn't. Delete immediately!

No probs shysal - thanks for spotting my deliberate mistake too!
I meant to give you the spoof at Paypal contact as it may be handy for other GNetters - but forgot!

I had the Skype one a few days ago. Anything that mentions PayPal or banks makes me suspicious and I delete tham without opening them.

Yes, thanks Sbagran, I shall forward any future similar scams to [email protected]

shysal I have received this scam several times - Don't open any links or anything but forward it through the Paypal fraud dept - they are always very grateful to hear when their customers receive anything like this.
Personally, I don't think this particular one is dangerous as far as viruses etc are concerned but obviously could be if they obtain personal details etc.

I had the "your computer has a virus that affects the speed of e-mail" scammer on the phone during the week. I don't think his script was very good as he found it hard to respond to any questions and just kept insisting that I should go and switch on my computer. As I had been warned (by Gransnetters) of the scam, I didn't co-operate with him, but being spoken to as if I were half-witted would probably have made me unco-operative anyway.

I'm afraid we are all having to be suspicious these days - I got home from the shops the other day to find a man lurking at the top of my drive. He said he was doing a survey and could I spare 10 mins. Just told him I don't do surveys and he left. He may have been genuine but I didn't want to take the chance. I spoke to a neighbour later and she said her partner had asked to see his identification and he showed him something with the name of a company he had never heard of.

Yes, I googled this and it's a scam that's been going on for about a year now, although I haven't had one myself. It does seem these scams start up and then fade away, only to reappear at a later date in the hope of catching someone else out...