Scams and Online Safety

This article has been contributed by a regular chatbox contributor, "Siteuser", prompted by the recent "Amazon" news item. which you can see here

I'm prompted by the Amazon news item last Sunday to warn others about a few scams I've encountered recently that I've not seen mentioned anywhere before.

Amazon

I was recently in the market for a new laptop and having narrowed my choice down did the usual web searches for the best price. A "marketplace" seller with good feedback came up on Amazon with a price too good to be true, but plausible, for an "open box" but new unit.

However the description said not to pay direct through the Amazon website system but to write directly to an e-mail address giving all my details including address and bank details, and then an "Amazon" invoice would be generated by email for me to click a link to pay by bank transfer. It turns out these scammers "hijack" legitimate Amazon Marketplace traders' accounts, usually over a weekend when they're not monitored by the owner, to sucker people into another version of the fake invoice scam.

NEVER respond to such an invoice- pay only through the legitimate website system, whether it be Amazon, eBay or any other marketplace.

Gumtree

Trying to sell a car, I placed an ad with a mobile number on Gumtree. Almost immediately I got a text asking me to respond to an email address. I realised it was a scam, but out of curiosity replied from a disposable email address. I got a lengthy reply telling me they were a marine engineer on an offshore rig, but was happy to pay the full price immediately, car unseen, if I sent my bank account details.

Then a "courier" would come to collect the car. A web search on the sender's email address showed this was a variant of a common Gumtree scam for high value items. Some people had actually parted with iPhones etc to find the "payment" into their banks accounts that had initially appeared was later reversed- it's apparently quite easy to make "fake" BACS transfers which the banks later will annul when the sending account is found to have insufficient funds. The supposed 3 days clearance time for BACS transfers is in reality more like 10 days before the full transaction process completes between the two banks.

My advice with Gumtree etc is don't part with anything until you have actual notes in your hands (and then be careful they're not forgeries)

Match

I was surprised to find a very authentic looking email in my inbox this morning telling me I had successfully registered with dating site Match.com, and with all the usual links to click through from. Now, whilst I have been with Mrs SiteUser for over 40 years, I have no need to replace her and hadn't registered with said dating site. Wary of clicking links in unsolicited emails I resisted the temptation to click on one to use if I hadn't signed up to Match.

Instead out of curiosity I went to the real website to check if an account had been created with my email address- someone could have possibly misspelt their own address as mine. Using the Password Reset facility elicited no email from Match, indicating no account had in fact been created with my email address and the email I had received would probably either have downloaded malware onto my computer had I clicked on it, or started off some other sort of scam. Later (having told Mrs SiteUser what I was doing!) I actually set up an account to fully test if any account existed with my email address, and was able to complete the process which meant none did. Incidentally it was amazing how many 30ish blondes seemed keen to immediately hook up with an 85 year old with no profile details or picture- but that's probably another story.

As a general rule

Never click on links in emails, especially if it's something you never subscribed to. Instead go the authentic website of whichever outfit it purports to come from. From there you can log into your account if you have one, or check to see if someone has set up a bogus account with your credentials.

More generally always ensure that your passwords are random and secure- something like 12 or 16 characters using letters, numbers and special characters if the site allows them. Then change them periodically. It's very easy if you use a "password manager" that will generate random passwords for you. I use "Roboform", although I never use cloud based systems where your information is stored on their servers, given these have been hacked in the past. There are others like Lastpass, Keypass, Dashlane etc which have various pros and cons.

A little bit of caution and scepticism will keep you safe generally, but you can keep up to date on many of the latest threats at places like ActionFraud, hoax-slayer.com and snopes.com. Also make sure you have top rated antivirus, like Kaspersky or Norton, but remember it won't protect you from everything.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.