BEWARE…THE SCAM!
I frequently get phone calls from clients asking about some email or phone call they responded to, or hopefully did NOT respond to, trying to find out if they were/are/will soon be the victim of a scam. Let me show you something:
These are photos of 5 scam emails I have received in the last three days! How do I know they are “scam” related? The box to the right shows the details of the “sender” of the email: <jfd67jhsagd67@iphonesrepairvoicesexxx> .
The internet “security” experts tell us to look first at the senders email, and if it is NOT a reflection of the supposed company who they want us to believe has sent the email it is generally a “hoax”, scam, etc. They are “pfishing” and when you respond an provide personal information you really don’t want them to have, it is too late. They ask you to verify account numbers, cc number, offer special bargains for which you need to provide full name, address and phone number while getting payment info to pay for supposed shipping.
Also, I have twice received this text message from Chase Bank: “For security reasons we have locked your online banking account please follow the link below to confirm your information:-https://bit.ly/3Fj1opy
NO, I don’t even have a Chase Bank account and that is not a clear Chase bank address! If I did have a Chase Bank account I would call Chase Security directly to verify this came from them.
Lo and behold, I next get a text message, a “Citi Security Alert: A new recipient has been linked in your app on 11/10/2021. If this WAS you, ignore this message, if NOT cancel at https://d9-citi.com”.
ONCE AGAIN, NO. This time I do have Citi credit cards from Costco. But I don’t trust bad grammar and who or what is a “recipient” and what does “linking” to my “app” mean? So I called Citi directly and they verified this was a likely scam attempt.
It must be the holiday season and since the bad guys know many of us shop at the big stores such as I have shown here, and most people would like some “free” money it is too easy for us to become the victims of responding to emails, text messages, or phone calls like these.
Sorry, as you can see by the larger font, I am getting more upset as I type this!
One last image:
Sue and I flew to Wisconsin this last weekend to spend an early Thanksgiving with our families. It was necessarily a short trip (although flying with a mask on made it seem like an eternity!) and just for a moment, while glancing at the display on the dashboard”, I thought that someone had “hacked” into the display, showing a 28 degreetemperature at 8:19 in the morning, and while we drove the only thing that changed was the Christmas music!
We survived and left them at a moderate 48 degrees!