Yesterday I had an amateurish text message purporting to be from our Gov. Department of Works and Pensions. The text had no Gov. logo, but was telling me to promptly claim a 'subsidy' that was owing from 2024/5 or lose my entitlement. It appeared to be a group text message, though there were no other names shown. I traced the originating phone number and it hailed from Ottawa, Canada. I reported this to the government scam service, and thought I had better check for data breaches. There were two, one was a dog show site that I used to use - but probably never logged out of, the other was Breedia which I also leave Open. No harm done but perhaps a warning to be more careful.
It likely had nothing to do with any data breach. In most cases, they buy email lists from online companies, etc. and then sell them to other scammers and so on.
Since we are on the subject... Someone called my husband last year, claiming that we started payments on a cell phone in 2015 and still owe a balance. If he did not pay the balance over the phone, someone would be coming to our current home and serving us with papers for a lawsuit. Neither of us ever owned this model of cell phone. They told us what address we lived at when we supposedly bought it. We actually did live there - but not in the year when they said. You can search online for someone's first and last name, and a lot of websites will list half-correct information about their addresses and relatives/family ("may be associated with..."). For example, a site might list you as currently living at [Address] when you actually moved nine years ago. We refused to pay, and nobody came to our home with papers.
What a complex world we live in! I presumed that my text message was phishing for more information. We all give away scraps of personal information all the time and these people feel like stalkers, gathering enough clues to mount a break in. I think they would be disappointed as I don't do online banking. I used to use telephone banking but when they extended it to being online too, I opted out. These days I either use Paypal or write a cheque. I do have payment details lodged with one or two trusted companies that I use regularly. I get unsettled by things that are beyond my control.
Yes, they gather info from many of those people lookup sites to makes things more relevant to you. Yes, it was phishing to get more info, it's just that they don't need to do a data breach to get your basic information in the first place. The email was an attempt to get you to log to your pension in using their link. Their link is fake and will take you to a look alike site that reads your log in info. Then they use that info to access your account. They send out the same message to 500,000+ emails hoping that at least one will click on the link and enter their log in info. The main thing to remember is that no legitimate company will threaten you. If you owe money, they will send you a posted letter, not an email. Even if you opt for online correspondence only, if they are collecting on a debt, they will always send a posted letter. If you think it might be a real email, manually type in the company's website or call their number from a statement, etc, and check with them.
I've worked at two places where people could send/receive Western Union money wire transfers. We were supposed to warn the customers about potential scams, but so many people would get angry and refuse to believe it. Our supervisors told us to quit trying to warn them and just process the transactions anyway. - Men often had an Internet girlfriend/fiancee who was supposed to be coming to the USA soon. A red flag is when the woman's brother/uncle always picks up the money for her. The recipient needs to present a photo ID, so it's quite likely that this male family member is pretending to be the woman online. - Women would have an Internet boyfriend/fiance who was in the US military and currently out of the country. They needed to send money to his mother, to help her pay a bill. Again, red flag. "But she sent me this picture of herself!" "I have a picture of his mother! See!" Those can be copied from social media.
This is the reason why I don’t do social media, people tell me you need to set up an account just to see this that and the other, my reply is…. I really don’t care that someone is going on holiday, or they bought something for whatever reason, they have opened themselves up to being burgled or ripped off.It was bad enough that through lockdown here I was getting calls from supposedly HMRC and that if I didn’t press 1 they would send the police round to arrest me, yes I was self employed at the time but I wasn’t stupid enough to press it, I know things like that only come in brown envelopes. Then you get the warranty scams on things that you buy, 3 times different months for the same product, so from me they get a round of f***s and put the phone down. It’s infuriating that these people can still get away with it in this day and age and having supposedly AI. The more calls I get the more shirty I am with them, to the point I’m rude.
On the consumer programme today, (BBC4), presenter Shari Val gained voice access to both of her bank accounts, (Santander and Halifax), using an AI cloned version of her voice. This system may be useful for people who struggle to remember passwords, but it is something else that I will not be trying.
AI is a potentially huge problem in many ways. My bank is now offering the use of fingerprints instead of passwords. The problem there is the opposite - if something happens to you and a family member or friend needs to access your bank account for you, they cannot. A friend of mine died from COVID. He used one of those pattern swipe locks for his phone. His brother could not gain access no matter what he tried. All their work contacts, etc, were in my friend's phone and were lost. Then there is the issue of the authenticator. You sign in to your account and the system sends a code to your phone for verification. Well, if you lose access to your phone, you can't get the code, so you can't get into your account. And you can't change your phone number on the account unless you use the verify code. To have a safety for that, I added my friend's phone number to my account. So if something happens to me or my phone, she can get the verification code to access my account.
I have that telephone code system using my landline. I think landlines are not going to be around for much longer though. They have sent me a small keypad device but I have no idea how it would connect to anything. I'm trusting that all will become plain when the ri time comes.
