I got an email today supposedly from parkmobile trying to give me a free $30 gift from some other 3rd party vendor. I looked up the other 3rd party vendor i and it looked sketchy. plus the email supposedly from parkmobile ended in .io All looked sketchy. Deleted it
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DH got the grandparent scam the other day. A male voice said, “Grandpa?” to him. The only male grandchild we have is not quite two, so DH hung up. We both agreed he should have gone with it for a while, just to see what happened.
What was really weird was that we have caller ID, I was out, and the call was showing as being from me. 
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Just got an email from “Amazn” (sent to one of my emails I don’t use for AmazOn) offering some free trial of some streaming or something. Of course when I clicked on the “from” to see the real email it came from, it was some gobbledygook. Deleted.
Eta: this post autocorrected to spell Amazon correctly. The email spelled it incorrectly (amazn)
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Caller ID means nothing.
These calls are placed over VOIP systems. One just needs a PC to run some PBX software, and sign up with a VOIP provider. The caller ID is just a piece of “metadata” supplied as part of the SIP header data when a call is set up from that PC. It can be set to anything.
Similar to the sender information at the old Fax machines; just because I can program my fax machine to display “Joe Biden”, it doesn’t mean my fax came from the White House.
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But, it was reason enough for DH to answer the phone.
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Several years ago we warned H’s father (in his late 80’s) about the scam. He got a call, remembered the warning and hung up. But, he said it sounded so real! He called H to make sure it was a scam.
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My father received one of those calls over 40 years ago!!! Someone called in the late hours supposedly pretending to be his college-age daughter, and asking for help. I remember he was quite disturbed by the call, but in a short time realized it was not his daughter. So this scam has been around a LONG time. Or maybe it was just a wrong number.
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With AI being able to simulate a range of voices it can sound ever more authentic—yikes!
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I just got an email from the “Okta Support Team” - Subject: Reducing maximum expiration time for login transactions. The raw data read seems to suggest they are changing maximum logins from three days to one hour - for what, I have no idea! They suggest “We highly recommend you configure default login routes”. I think they think I’m some kind of system administrator?
At any rate, since it seems meaningless to me, I will delete. But is it actually spam? Hmm, no idea.
Looks like a phish. I doubt you use any Okta secure cloud apps.
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Could also be resulting from “0ktapus” (notice the ZERO instead of Letter O) breach last year that affected at least 130 organizations and ten thousand(s) employees/users.
So yes, it’s phishing - possibly targeted because your email address may have been associated with some login account that internally had used Okta for multi-factor authentication.
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Wild - the bank account I’m on with my Auntie just emailed and texted me that my debit card was declined due to an incorrect expiration date - I logged in to the account (not using a link in the communication), found the security message there as well. I called. Card is compromised. The wild thing is, yesterday was the first time I ever used the card. At my local Target, did not use a pin (hint, do not use your pin if using a debit card, the scammers can wipe out your entire account with a pin, but cannot without it). Anyway…this unauthorized charge was for some place in Minnesota, I’m in So Cal. And the charge was for under $15. So it feels like someone had a skimmer or e-skimmer near me yesterday (I’ve never even pulled it out of my wallet in almost 2 years!)
I hate scam artists with a passion!
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Thought this might be an interesting read for this page (gift link):
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Thanks!
Someone taking the Avatar picture off the public profile of a real user, then setting up a new Venmo account using that picture and just inserting/appending a hyphen to the original User ID, actually has the potential to fool even well-informed people.
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Ugh, my dad was an engineering researcher for more than 50 years and still falls for stuff. I don’t think it’s due to failing facilities, based on the lectures he’s giving and consulting work he’s still doing. He can just be gullible.
He sent me a link about a supposedly miraculous device called “Esaver” that will lower electricity bills significantly. It took me about ten seconds to Google it and realize it’s a scam.
Info from Snopes: Was Pro Power Saver Endorsed by Elon Musk and Tesla? | Snopes.com
Was just alerted on the local fb page of a new Spotify scam. Apparently if you’re pairing a new device, a pop up indicates you need to contact the site to verify or something like that. The fake site has two y’s in the link. Be aware.
Turns out the email about the gift from parkmobile was legit! Free $30 giftcad!
I received 2 emails today supposedly from Norton Lifelock. Separate addresses that didn’t sound valid, saying I would be charged for 3 years of service. No memory of signing for anything like this, but fingers can slip. I called the provided number, just in case. The man who answered wanted to get into my browser to cancel the service, which I refused. When I asked for their name, they hung up on me.
In addition, there was an email from a non valid source saying my Prime was expiring. Uh, not yet.
Is this the season for scams?
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Oh, gosh, I’m assuming that’s what got through your spam filter? I was going through my spam (because it occasionally catches something that isn’t actually spam) and there was a very convincing letter from someone who had acquired my email password in a data leak, and saw my troubling history of visiting porn sites. “I’m sure you know what I’m referring to”. Yeah, no, I’m not sending you any bitcoins. But they did helpfully suggest I should change my passwords.