Another "creative" scam

[Bob Rufener]

I received an email allegedly from E-ZPASS saying:

Dear customer, You have not paid for driving on a toll road. This invoice is sent repeatedly, please service your debt in the shortest possible time. Interesting how the sender's email address was from NL which I assume is the Netherlands. The letter has a button which I am supposed to click on to get my invoice. Hmmm! I don't think so..

[ken masoumi]

I have been receiving the same phishing emails from EZPASS and I just keep blocking them,I have not driven in the US since 1990 and we don't have EZpass up in Canada but that doesn't seem to matter to them!

[Chuck Wintle]

I received an email allegedly from E-ZPASS saying:

Dear customer, You have not paid for driving on a toll road. This invoice is sent repeatedly, please service your debt in the shortest possible time. Interesting how the sender's email address was from NL which I assume is the Netherlands. The letter has a button which I am supposed to click on to get my invoice. Hmmm! I don't think so..

Its easy to detect these scams as the english grammer is of poor quality and is often phrased in a way that is seldom used. when in doubt delete!

[Mike Henderson]

Yes, I have gotten email from "UPS" telling me the package was "dispatched" and the tracking information is in the attached file. They don't seem to realize that the word "dispatched" is UK usage and not USA usage (USA would be "shipped"). So even if the rest of the spelling and grammar was correct, the word usage is a tip-off.

Mike

[ray hampton]

Yes, I have gotten email from "UPS" telling me the package was "dispatched" and the tracking information is in the attached file. They don't seem to realize that the word "dispatched" is UK usage and not USA usage (USA would be "shipped"). So even if the rest of the spelling and grammar was correct, the word usage is a tip-off.

Mike

this mistake is easy to understand since the word "dispatch are still being use for other things , UPS trucks are dispatch every day , police cars are dispatch , animals that get hurt by a car get dispatch

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

My rule of thumb with these things is to never click anything. If my bank or phone company or some business I have an account with, or paypal or something, needs my intervention, I should be able to sign into their website and do it. Same principle as my bank - when there's an issue with my credit card, they don't call me and ask for my number, they tell me to call the number on the back of my card. You don't give your social to someone who called you, only someone you called. Same idea.

[ray hampton]

My rule of thumb with these things is to never click anything. If my bank or phone company or some business I have an account with, or paypal or something, needs my intervention, I should be able to sign into their website and do it. Same principle as my bank - when there's an issue with my credit card, they don't call me and ask for my number, they tell me to call the number on the back of my card. You don't give your social to someone who called you, only someone you called. Same idea.

I do not give my social to anyone except when they are facing ME , I do not know who I am talking to on the phone unless I know their voice

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I do not give my social to anyone except when they are facing ME , I do not know who I am talking to on the phone unless I know their voice

That's a good point- I meant to write account number and not social - I don't know how I messed that up.

[Garth Sheane]

The bad boys seemed to ramped up their game this year. Back in March I got an email from my service provider saying that my web mail account was about to be purged for inactivity. To stop the purge, "click here". Since I hadn't looked at my web mail account, and it was from the service provider, I clicked. Wrong thing to do, and I nearly panicked. I called the SP who assured me that they would never send such an email. I had my password changed. In the end, after weeks of fear, nothing really seemed to happen. But, since that time, I have received a ton of spoof mail. "Spoofing" is spam masqueraded as an email from a legitimate source. Now, I am getting spoofs from other "legitimate" sources as well, and I click nothing anymore. I sort of think that when I clicked that first one, my email address was confirmed to someone who probably sold it down the line to other spoofers. What the end game to all this nonsense is, I can't really tell.

[ray hampton]

The bad boys seemed to ramped up their game this year. Back in March I got an email from my service provider saying that my web mail account was about to be purged for inactivity. To stop the purge, "click here". Since I hadn't looked at my web mail account, and it was from the service provider, I clicked. Wrong thing to do, and I nearly panicked. I called the SP who assured me that they would never send such an email. I had my password changed. In the end, after weeks of fear, nothing really seemed to happen. But, since that time, I have received a ton of spoof mail. "Spoofing" is spam masqueraded as an email from a legitimate source. Now, I am getting spoofs from other "legitimate" sources as well, and I click nothing anymore. I sort of think that when I clicked that first one, my email address was confirmed to someone who probably sold it down the line to other spoofers. What the end game to all this nonsense is, I can't really tell.

Buying a new computer may help or replacing the component that other computers check for a I D number when you come on the internet

[Erik Loza]

+1... We're all joking about this stuff because of how obvious it seems but even if only one person out of a hundred actually clicks that link, they can do something evil.

My dad, for example, is basically not allowed to use email without myself or my brother reviewing the content. It's not that he's not an intelligent man. It's just that he's not internet-savvy and my brother and I want to keep him from getting phished. It was funny: Dad told me about a year ago that he was "had email now" and would write me. Huge surprise: Never got any emails from him. A year later, the first and only email I got was a spambot who hacked his Yahoo account! Many folks out there who just do not know any better.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[ray hampton]

+1... We're all joking about this stuff because of how obvious it seems but even if only one person out of a hundred actually clicks that link, they can do something evil.

My dad, for example, is basically not allowed to use email without myself or my brother reviewing the content. It's not that he's not an intelligent man. It's just that he's not internet-savvy and my brother and I want to keep him from getting phished. It was funny: Dad told me about a year ago that he was "had email now" and would write me. Huge surprise: Never got any emails from him. A year later, the first and only email I got was a spambot who hacked his Yahoo account! Many folks out there who just do not know any better.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

I never talk to your father , if you say that your father smart then he must be smart AND THIS is the type of person that the scam will harass , school teachers, doctors ,cops and lawyers are being taken in by the con people, these people may not be the only ones that got con , some people will not file a report , the gangsters and mob may be taking care of the con men that targets them

[Rick Potter]

I was feeling left out of these situations, in a weird way, but I finally got my phone call telling me there was something wrong with my computer. I listened for a while, then told him I had to go into the house to turn it on. Then I set the phone down and checked back in 5 minutes. He was gone, but when I hung up, I got three quick phone calls with no one on the line. Guess he was not happy.

Rick P

[ray hampton]

I was feeling left out of these situations, in a weird way, but I finally got my phone call telling me there was something wrong with my computer. I listened for a while, then told him I had to go into the house to turn it on. Then I set the phone down and checked back in 5 minutes. He was gone, but when I hung up, I got three quick phone calls with no one on the line. Guess he was not happy.

Rick P

OH FOR PETE SAKE get caller ID installed on your telephone TODAY , then you can call them back often

[Dan Hintz]

Buying a new computer may help or replacing the component that other computers check for a I D number when you come on the internet

Buying a new computer will have zero effect on receiving spam emails. And there is no one component in a computer that has a unique ID... several components have that, and none are used to identify you when you're on the net (that's what cookies are for).

OH FOR PETE SAKE get caller ID installed on your telephone TODAY , then you can call them back often

Caller ID is (practically) useless for such tactics. The majority of spam calls will be using robocallers (where no one is at the other end of the line to pick up) or via IP forwarding (where the number displayed is completely random/fake).