I got that one last Friday, except caller ID said it was a fellow employee. Technically, they are in my department, but a different building. I was like “why are they calling me at home?” It was that SSA scam.
I fell for a scam about a month ago. I got an email from a woman I’ve known for about 15 years. We belong to a church group together. She said that a certain body part was acting up so she was unable to get to the phone. She wanted me to buy Google play cards for her niece’s birthday . I fell for it because I checked the email address and it really was my friend’s email address. I knew that she had trouble with that body part and it often makes her immobile. I also know that she has never married and her closest relative is a young niece. I actually bought the Google play cards, but when I was instructed to just send the numbers by email, I finally woke up. My friends email account was hacked. They had obviously read all of her email. From it, they knew that she was doing something else that day, which required her turning off her phone all day long. Everyone in our church group got the email. None of us actually lost money, but a couple of us came very close.The worst part for me was that the message really came from her actual email account and the details in it about her health problems made me think it really was from her.Believe it or not, it was the cashier at my local pharmacy that warned me it sounded like a scam.
5 Likes
I’m glad you were able to recognize it. That scam is still happening. H had an eerily similar email he received from one of his work clients a couple of weeks ago. He tried to contact the client to let him know, but he wasn’t answering the phone. Fortunately, H recognized it as a scam as soon as he “heard” (via email) what the client wanted. The first email was something to the effect of, “I hate to bother you but…” and the rest got detailed out when H responded to that one.
We both hope the hacker wasn’t able to get to H’s info from his emails.
That is really scary. To have had the actual health issues and add them to the email scam . . . Wow. Just wow.
A new one. A text that says, “Hi [[first name]] this is K…, a volunteer w/ the State Democratic Party. I wanted to make sure you saw: we’re looking for folks in [[a local town]] to run for local office. Would you like info on how to run?” Variants of the message have been popping up with different “volunteer” names, partly affiliation, and towns. Sure, our parties are in dire need of folks to run for local offices! 
Hmmm, wonder what the point of this scam is?
I’m sure to get more personal information or solicit $$.
I received a lengthy email yesterday – that thankfully was in my spam folder – telling me that the writer had video of me watching porn on my computer and doing – you know, stuff. He wanted $5862 in Bitcoin, and included a link to a website to learn how to get Bitcoin. What was really creepy was that in the first sentence, he included a password that I have occasionally used. I frequently use a variation of that password, so now I’m going to change all of them.
It kind of creeped me out.
3 Likes
I had this scam. They wanted less money though, so maybe the porn I allegedly watched was low quality, lol.
I changed all my passwords too, just in case, and I alerted family and anyone I email not to open any email from “me” that had an attachment or link.
1 Like
Actually, the writer of the email complimented me on my taste. Really. Soooooo creepy!
My stepfather almost fell for that. He got an email from an old neighbor of his, who he still knows, but hasn’t seen or heard from them in a while, (my stepdad lives in a small town so he has run into these people over the years and he isn’t totally out of touch with them) saying that she needed a Google Play card and couldn’t make it to the store to get one, and could he go to Wal Mart and get one for her? And then mail it to her and give her his bank account number to reimburse him for the shipping and the cost of the card.
The only reason he didn’t fall for it is because I happened to call right then and he asked me what a Google Play card was. He’s good with technology, but stuff like Google Play is beyond him. Luckily, I explained it was a scam and he got it right away and was glad he didn’t do anything. He said he did have that voice in his head saying something was fishy. Also, this person has two daughters, 3 grandchildren(at least one of whom is probably a teenager), two sons-in law, and her husband who could all go grab a gift card if she was unable to make it to the store…
These scammers are relentless. And they really get people worried. My grandpa thought this person had a serious problem since all of a sudden they sent him an email and they couldn’t get to the store…
I got that once when paying for parking, when picking up a friend at the Burbank Airport (which we really never use), and I didn’t know the company had detected fraud until we went to lunch straight from the airport and my card was declined. Turned out the company thought the card was stolen, since I never am at Burbank Airport. Luckily, it was all sorted out over the phone and my friend picked up our lunch tab, since she wanted to treat me at some point during her stay…
I’ve had to call my CC company because I see charges that aren’t clear what they’re for or I don’t remember making a payment somewhere…then I call and find they’re perfectly legit and I did make that charge. For instance: a $10 charge from AMP Co…well that was a company who owns a parking garage I parked in when H and I went to a jazz concert. My D got one on her CC statement that was a $50 charge from an event company. She did some sleuthing and realized that it was her registration fee for a color run that she did with her friend and the events company listed on her statement was the outfit that organizes the run…
Always good to check!
1 Like
I recently got one accusing me of stealing their artwork to use on my website with instructions to click a link to see the photos in question. The word kindly was not used, but the vocab was similar, somehow, to the kindly ones, so it was not difficult to see through, but I could see a newbie falling for that one.
Looks like the Venmo email was actually legit. They are being required to follow banking laws if they let you keep mony in your venmo account. I still decided not to provide the information and they will just move any “excees” funds to the linked bank account immediately (better solution I think anyway).
I am seeing an uptick in scam text messages. One from “USPS” and another from a bank we don’t use. It’s annoying.
I got a USPS text yesterday. Ugh.
A new one! A text that says “We will lock your device soon. Please clear spam messages. (link)” Oh yeah. Seriously? I cleared the scam as recommended - with the link 
1 Like
I got the exact same text yesterday.
Got this yesterday: “Amazon: Congratulations Kerry, you came in 1st in March’s Amazon pods raffle! Follow the link to : xxx”
Not sure why they called me Kerry!
H won Amazon’s raffle too! I don’t recall if “Kerry” was on there or not because I only skimmed the text when he showed it to me.
I wonder how many other “lucky” winners there were.