e-mail scam

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 1:00 pm

Er...the thing is, that is the correct domain name for the Halifax. So why you got it is a mystery...

Post by **Mike** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:00 pm

However, that is NOT the correct domain name for their online banking service. If my bank ever asks for things like this I always ignore it. If required they can contact me in more efficient ways. :D

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:27 pm

That's even weirder. It's sending you to an official website, so they can't steal any information...the only other reason would be to try and use some of Halifax's bandwidth up, but even that isn't the most effective way to do it. Dumbest fake email ever?

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:07 am

i've had similar adverts from the bank of america, mastercard, two other finance companies i've never heard of, and e-bay in the last two weeks. plus the 'rebranding' i did by setting up another e-mail addres hasn't worked - the crooked africain bank clerks are still desperately trying to send me millions of dollars from the accounts of dead presidents and calling me 'dearest one'.

on a slightly different note, i'm not all that impressed with yahoo's beta e-mail service. when i'm logged in but on the normal yahoo home page, it keeps telling me i've got unread messages when i haven't - it said there were 14 today; i had two in my inbox that i had first read last friday!

BarcelonAl · Post by **BarcelonAl** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 9:32 am

It is strange Mr_e, unless Halifax have spotted and fixed a hole in their secure website.

The '.dll' file extension is not an executable or a valid web document file type, but merely a library of pre-compiled code used by other programs.

I'd just suggest doing as Mike does and ignoring any emails from banks!

Post by **Mike** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:13 pm

I really don't think that 'rebranding' information works in the long term you will always have a similar number of spam. I like the new Yahoo! mail, it is a big improvement on the original and much better now some of the more obvious bugs are being ironed out. The unread emails one must be annoying though!

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:24 am

and so the day has finally come which i knew it would, when someone pretending to be from the halifax dropped a message to say my on-line account needs updating, yadda yadda yadda. i do have an account with the halifax but i've never done any on-line banking of any kind, so by all means suspend it and if i ever find out who you are i will pull your intestines out through your nose, stuff one end into your mouth so that your bowels will start to empty straight back into your stomach. and then i'll get really angry

Post by **johnriley1uk** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:37 am

I thought that's what the banks did if you accidentally exceeded your overdraft limit?

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:19 pm

i still keep getting messages from people asking to transfer money to my account to share the wealth around "at no risk" usually from someone apparently in africa, but i stopped putting them on here because they all sound the same. however, today i found what is quite possibly the sickest attempt to screw money out of people i have ever heard of:

Dear Sir/Madam

After going through your profile i decided to contact you for friendship
and assistace and distribution of my inherentance
My name is Mrs. Jenny Brooks; I am a dying woman who has decided to donate
what I have to you/ church. I am 59 years old and I was diagnosed for
cancer
for about 2 years ago, immediately after the death of my husband, who has
left me everything he worked for.
I have been touched by God to donate from what I have inherited from my
late husband to you for the good work of God, rather than allow my
relatives
to use my husband hard earned funds ungodly. Please pray that the good
Lord forgive me my sins. I have asked God to forgive me and I believe he
has because He
is a merciful God. I will be going in for an operation in less than one hour.

I decided to WILL/donate the sum of $2,500,000 (two million five hundred
thousand dollars) to you for the good work of the lord, and also to help
the
motherless and less privilege and also for the assistance of the widows.

At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls right now due to the fact
that my relatives are around me and my health status. I have adjusted my
WILL and my lawyer is aware I have changed my will you and he will arrange
the transfer of the funds from my account to you.

I wish you all the best and may the good Lord bless you abundantly, and
please use the funds well and always extend the good work to others.
Contact my lawyer (Barrister Tango David ) with this specified
email:consultantacy@yahoo.co.uk and tell him that I have WILLED
($2,500,000.00) to you and I have also notified him that I am WILLING that
amount to you for a
specific and good work. I know I don?t know you but I have been directed
to do this. Thanks and God bless.

NB: I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the
task is accomplished as I don't want anything that will jeopardize my last
wish. And Also I will be contacting with you by email as I don't want my
relation
or anybody to know because they are always around me.

Regards,
Jenny Brooks (Mrs.)

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:40 pm

The scam wrote:Contact my lawyer (Barrister Tango David ) with this specified
email:consultantacy@yahoo.co.uk

OK, first of all - they could have chosen a decent name. What happens when you've been scammed - some fat orange guy appears and slaps you around the face?
second of all - they could have chosen a decent e-mail address.

Why bother? Who the hell falls for this crap?

Post by **Mike** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:44 pm

Interesting email address - that sucks as a professional con. Interestingly Halifax run an email check where you can forward these bogus email to them and they apparently investigate.

Post by **johnriley1uk** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:47 pm

You can do the same on eBay. spoof@ebay.co.uk and spam@ebay.co.uk are the appropriate addresses. And you even get a reply.

BarcelonAl · Post by **BarcelonAl** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:26 pm

Just to prove that the scammers are everywhere, we were informed last week of a site selling games consoles for knock-down prices that was a little too like our site for comfort.

They basically ripped off our website, did a hatchet job on ramming in their own content and set up an almost convincing e-commerce site (complete with verisign and thawte security certificates...well almost!). Sadly for the people who placed orders with this company (and it looks like there were a lot), the site is a scam to harvest credit card and other personal details.

The site is now shut down and the police are investigating (along with a whole bunch of other people). It's just a reminder that on the web, if it looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is!

Here's a link to The Register's article on it: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/0 ... line_scam/

Post by **Mike** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:16 am

Well I don't think that Dabs can do all that much about people lifting code from their website. Just goes to show that you should not necessarily trust buying the cheapest items you can find.

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Tue May 15, 2007 4:36 pm

i haven't added anything here for a while because the scams are so similar and dull, but today i think i found one worthy of note - pay particular attention to the offhand remark about torture and nuclear weapons as if it's an everyday occurance in iraq:

Good day My Friend,

I am Captain Simon Smith of the US Marine Force on Monitoring and Peace keeping mission in Baghdad-Iraq. On the 7th day of May 2007, we were alerted on the sudden presence of some Terrorists camping in a suburb not too far from Karbala here in Iraq . After Immediate intervention, we captured three (3) of the Terrorists, twenty-six (26) were killed leaving seven (7) injured.

In the process of torture they confessed being rebels for late Ayman
al-Zawahiri and took us to a cave in Karbala which served as their
camp. Here we recovered several guns, bombs and other Ammunitions including some boxes among which two contains nuclear weapons, one filled with hard drugs(cocaine) and the other four to my amazement contain some US Dollars amounting to $24 Million after I and two of my junior intelligent officers counted them. I however instructed them to keep this in high secrecy.

I am in keen need of a “Reliable and Trustworthy” person like you who would receive, secure and protect these boxes containing the US Dollars for me up on till my assignment elapses in here in Iraq. I assure and promise to give you 14% of this fund, however feel free to negotiate what you wish to have as your percentage in this business.

Please assure me of your keeping this topmost secret to protect my job with the US Monitoring and Peace-Keeping mission.

pleases contact me throught my personal email: (smithsimon@rediffmail.com)

Sincere regards,

Capt Simon Smith.