Bod
Established Member
On the 27th I recieved an e-mail, "Receipt for your account upgrade at ukworkshop.co.uk"
I did not reply or open, am I being scammed?
Bod
I did not reply or open, am I being scammed?
Bod
The scams are getting really sophisticated now.
- Thread starter artie
- Start date
Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
I'm pretty tech savvy but I got caught out with this one...
Email arrives from Ebay "About your Silver Seller account".
So I open that as I am doing well, am a Bronze Seller, expecting to become Silver any day now.
"Click on the link to login and see your message."
So I click on the link and its the Ebay login page.
I login... "your password is incorrect". So I login again, works fine, go to messages, no message.
The first login is oldest trick in the book. The dummy login page.
We used to do this to each other at college on DEC PDP-11's (a very old computer).
I should have twigged when there was no message.
Anyway, shortly thereafter I get a real email from Ebay "Your account has been locked due to suspicious activity" which I immediately decided was a scam.
So I didn't use the link and logged in normally.
Couldn't get in. Someone had changed the password and had advertised like 100 new iPhones for £50 each on my account.
Ebay's anti-fraud system caught the transaction as I have never sold cheap iPhones.
Lucky for me!
Email arrives from Ebay "About your Silver Seller account".
So I open that as I am doing well, am a Bronze Seller, expecting to become Silver any day now.
"Click on the link to login and see your message."
So I click on the link and its the Ebay login page.
I login... "your password is incorrect". So I login again, works fine, go to messages, no message.
The first login is oldest trick in the book. The dummy login page.
We used to do this to each other at college on DEC PDP-11's (a very old computer).
I should have twigged when there was no message.
Anyway, shortly thereafter I get a real email from Ebay "Your account has been locked due to suspicious activity" which I immediately decided was a scam.
So I didn't use the link and logged in normally.
Couldn't get in. Someone had changed the password and had advertised like 100 new iPhones for £50 each on my account.
Ebay's anti-fraud system caught the transaction as I have never sold cheap iPhones.
Lucky for me!
ey_tony
Established Member
It doesn't matter how streetwise one is, there is always a time when even the most shrewd and wary surfer will eventually fall for a scam of some description.
I've been around computers and programming them since the early 1980s so while no expert as I last programmed computers at university in 1989, I'm still reasonably streetwise with regard to how computers work and eventually you become aware of scams to the point that checking everything becomes second nature but even I was nearly caught out by one recently and it was only through instinctive double, double checking that I avoided anything nasty happening.
Most fake links are not always easy to spot. Of course some addresses are but the best way to avoid falling for the fake login page routine in an email is to look at the spelling and grammar in the email and then simply wipe your cursor over the link and read it carefully to look for odd or unexpected characters you wouldn't expect in a regular URL and then to be sure open a new window and go to the genuine site and compare login addresses but do not use the one in the email link.
If you've received an email link to log into your account then to be safe, simply open your account in a new window. If there is a genuine problem then it will show up on the official website and not just the email link.
I too was expecting an email from a known source recently and by coincidence I received a phishing email purporting to be from the known source and I almost fell for it but my instinct kicked in and I did the second check and found that the email link was to a fake login page.
I reported the email to the internet provider.
I've been around computers and programming them since the early 1980s so while no expert as I last programmed computers at university in 1989, I'm still reasonably streetwise with regard to how computers work and eventually you become aware of scams to the point that checking everything becomes second nature but even I was nearly caught out by one recently and it was only through instinctive double, double checking that I avoided anything nasty happening.
Most fake links are not always easy to spot. Of course some addresses are but the best way to avoid falling for the fake login page routine in an email is to look at the spelling and grammar in the email and then simply wipe your cursor over the link and read it carefully to look for odd or unexpected characters you wouldn't expect in a regular URL and then to be sure open a new window and go to the genuine site and compare login addresses but do not use the one in the email link.
If you've received an email link to log into your account then to be safe, simply open your account in a new window. If there is a genuine problem then it will show up on the official website and not just the email link.
I too was expecting an email from a known source recently and by coincidence I received a phishing email purporting to be from the known source and I almost fell for it but my instinct kicked in and I did the second check and found that the email link was to a fake login page.
I reported the email to the internet provider.
If in doubt, I will always copy the link then open it up in something like BBEdit which shows the nuts and bolts. If it is obvious that it is a scam then I will click on the link and when asked for my username will enter...well, you can guess. Childish I know but for a split second, 'they' will know they've been sussed.
