A list of all the Blog Posts in this category.

Mystery Text Messages

Recently I have been getting a lot of strange text messages. I think scammers are starting their transition from phone calls to text messages.

Here's a sample message that I recently received:

Good Response

I thought of a creative way to respond to these mystery text messages- once I confirmed that these are fake messages. Here's my new response:

What do you think? Will this scare people from replying?

WhatsApp Scam

I recently got the following text message on my WhatsApp app:

How anyone could not know this is a scam? None of it makes sense. Read it again.

Do you really think that a legitimate company would be using WhatsApp as a communication method to let you know of a winning?

Also who would ever get paid via ATM card? ATM card is a way to get your month not a credit card.

Facebook Friend Request

On Facebook, have you ever gotten a friend request from someone strange. Almost immediately after accepting the friend request, you get an instant message contact.

You may get an alert from Facebook, something like this:

Ya. This person is a scammer. Probably looking to get some money.

Five Signs You Are Being Scammed

Someone recently signed up to Facebook and immediately decided to friend you. There's no post and their profile is pretty vague.

They are someone you don't know. How did they find you? Why did they find you?

They communicate via chat and they ask a lot of questions about you. Seems like they are phishing. For someone new, they certainly know their way around Facebook instant messenger pretty quickly.

Sometimes when you talk to them it seems you are talking to a bot. Hard to explain this, but some conversations are just weird and seem very odd. Almost if the questions were going through some loop statement looking for the proper flow.

If the account only has one photo of the person, they probably stole the photo from someone else. You should do a "reverse" image search on google to see if the profile picture matched anyone else.

Elizabeth Anthony?

Will the real Elizabeth Anthony please stand up:

The above is the results of the Google Reverse Image Search.

Warren E. Buffet Email

On December 19th, 2020, I got this email from Warren Buffett: (Seriously how can anyone fall for this?)

Text Body

Scam All The Way...

This email arrived via an empty Google Form. (I am sure one of the richest people in the world would communicate via Google Forms.)

The email address was from wbuffer802@gmail.com. (That seems legitimate!)

I can't count the number of mistakes in the first paragraph.

A person that lives in the United States would certainly clarify the value in "United States Dollars."

He's going to Japan for treatment. For What- Why does that matter to me? (or was this a bad cut/paste from another email?)

If you're going to send me $2.5 Million, I would think you would tell me more about why I was chosen other than a random email address.

Warren Buffett certainly ends all his emails with "Mr.Warren E. Buffett Billionaire investor" as his tag line.

Nigerian Scam

This is another play on the Nigeria Advance-fee scam. I am sure part of the scam is that you have to send money to get the $2.5 million release to you.

Scammer Blaster

Today I got a strange automation call from Scammer Blaster. I can't tell if this is a legitimate call or if someone is just waiting 800 number minutes while people are listening to this message.

This is the message that was left on my voicemail. This message repeats itself until the voicemail system disconnects due to length:

Transcript

This is the transcript of the message from Apple's transcript service:

Is it Real?

Scammer Blaster is a real site and they do good work to eliminate scam calls.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.

Total Access Network Scam

The latest scam that's going around is getting a text message that you "won" a new iPhone 11. The link takes you to a page where you fill in a brief survey and then you enter in a credit card information to claim your prize.

Screenshots of the Scam in Play.

Just a Marketing Scam

The whole thing is just a marketing scam to trick you into signing up to Total Access Network, which is also Savers and Coupons. You can goto the Savers and Coupons Website to get all the details of the "offering."

Legal Disclaimer for Total Access Network, I highlighted the part they hope people don't read:

Might Be Good... but Remember...

This all started because I won an iPhone 11.

Which is wrong because in fact I won an Total Access Network iPhone 11 Pro Sweepstakes Entry. I have to pay to get a chance to win the iPhone.

Only for the iPhone

This whole promotion fails if I try to open the link on my computer. The site only loads if I click on it using a mobile device.

Clearly a scam.

Twitter Winning Scam

There's a new scam going on Twitter that's being done by a group called the 'Pioneer Capital Group.' There is someone claiming that you are a winner of a huge amount.

This is the instant message that got from a user called Linda Powell Overton (@anitaja33645035) {Account has been deleted by Twitter}:

The Boat Transportation

In my conversation with Linda Powell Overton, she mentioned that the money is being shipped by boat. She included a picture of the boat in my Twitter Chat:

Fact: This is American Glory - the website has the exact picture. American Cruise Lines' 49-passenger cruise ship American Glory at sea. The ship sails the rivers of Florida in winter and New England in summer.

The boat never ports in Michigan and It doesn't transport goods.

This was a scam.

Next Steps

I gave them a throw-a-way email account to continue the communications. Within a few minutes this appeared:

Screenshot of the Email from the "Pioneer Capital Group."

Clearly there's a lot of problems with this email. One of which, the email came from capitalfinancecompany8@gmail.com and not from pioneercapgroup.com.

I Must Pay for Shipping

After many back and forth conversations, the "Lawyer" (Barrister Frank) let me know that I had to pay them $100 in an Amazon Gift Card to receive the goods. ( That's $50 to get a Pin Code so that I can open the container and $50 the delivery charges.)

Factoid:

Five Signs that this was a Scam

1. Contacted by Twitter as the first notification. I won $16.2 million dollars and the first means of communicating the news is via IM in Twitter. I would expect a phone call maybe a visit with a camera crew. Seriously people really fall for this?
2. Email address is Gmail and not from the company. Why couldn't this come from the Pioneer Capital Group domain? Oh Right because it has nothing to do with them.
3. Sending money in a box on a boat. Yup. In 2019, we will still use a boat to ship the money. Forget about using electronic means - shipping by boat is the cool way to get the money.
4. Won a prize but no taxes? In all the communications with the people, nobody talked about the tax impact of the money. Which isn't surprising since I wasn't ever going to get any money.
5. Misspellings and Grammar. This was the big give away that this wasn't the real deal. All communications with the scammers had spelling and grammar mistakes. The 'Lawyer' said it was autocorrected that was causing the issue. Seriously? This is a multimillion-dollar transaction and you can't manage your autocorrect on your phone?

Here's The Deal

This is what the scammers were trying to sell me:

• I won 16.2 Million Dollars
• Something about having the same last name as 'our late client - a business magnate who lived in Florida, USA for Nineteen years. He died along with his family during the Hurricane Dorian.'
• All the money is in a box on a boat
• The boat is in Michigan and will take 2-days to get to you by sea.
• In order to get the money, I need to pay $50 to get the pin code from the Supreme Court
• You will need to pay $50 for the delivery of a box of cash.
• The fund is comes with a clearance certificate so I won't pay any taxes

What's Next

If you get any type of communication that request money for a "winning" you should report the account to Twitter. Remember, that anyone ask to pay for transactions using an Amazon Gift Card is lying to you - Checkout Amazon Phishing page.

Bitcoin Extortion Scam

Recently, I got this strange email to several unmonitored email address:

Several Notes About this Email

I got many copies of this email and the name of the person has been different, ewen76, ezechiel30 and ashby06 are just some of the names.

The email is very vague to what content they have.

They want me to send $500 to a bitcoin account, but not identify where the amount came from. So how would they know my email address so that the "data will be deleted?"

There's no way for them to track when the email was read since there's no tracking pixel in the email.

The email addresses that the email were sent to were setup for spam bait for "facebook surveys." I think that they are related to these survey scams where you have a chance to win a $1,000 Walmart Gift Card.

Palmco Energy

Palmco Power keeps calling me via (888) 269-7397 and (978) 523-1013. They are trying to get me to switch the energy supplier to Palmco.

Their high-pressure sales tactics haven't convinced me to switch. I never give them any account information.

For a while I thought it was Tomco that was calling, a London based energy provider. A caller did clarify the correct name.

Voters Wanted this Change

In 2005, Massachusetts voters approved deregulation of energy sources. Consumers now have the choice to where their electricity company should get the energy for their home.

Read up on the Massachusetts Energy Deregulation.

All Fun and Games until you do the Math

They claim to have the lowest price, but data from Eversource says they are one of the most expensive energy providers.

As of today, NStar/Eversource default cost is $12.888 (cents/kWh). So if you do nothing that is how much it will cost you. It's a good base number to understand.

Palmco says it can provide cheaper energy - it does for about a month. When you go to their site, you see a nice promotion for 10.100 (cents/kW)

However if you go to page two, the story changes a bit. That 10.100 (cents/kW) was a teaser rate. The second month it jumps to 13.9 (cents/kWh). Now you're paying more for energy than the standard rate.

While there's no cancellation fee, they are probably hoping that most new customers will forget about the switch.

Now you ended up paying more for no reason. So why would you switch?

One More Thing

On the call, you might be asked to give your Electric Provider account information - don't do it. They may use the information to switch your account over the phone.

Think it won't happen? MCI did this is the 1980s. A market firm, acting on MIC behalf, changed the long distance provider of thousands of customers without them knowing. (Read up on that story.)

Cold Calling

Next time PalmCo calls you, tell them:

Thanks for letting me know about the deregulation. I'll do some research and if you're the best option, I'll certainly switch. (Click)

Oh if they call back - and they will...

We did our research and made our choice. (Click)

If you still get callbacks...

Is this xxx? (Any Company that bothering you - might be a different energy provider.)

Well.... my neighbor switched last month and since the switch, they had nothing but horror stories about the whole process. So no thank you! (Click)

Fake IRS are Still Calling

This week I got a call from the Fake IRS. Seems that they are back in business again. Thakkar -- also known as "Shaggy" was arrested last April. Apparently, there are enough people who know about the scam technology to continue the scam.

Learn more about Sagar Thakkar and the Mira Road Call Centre Scam.

They called me at (240) 428-4213

Don't Fall for their Scam

• I asked the caller could they give me specifically what was wrong on my tax form that caused the "miscalculation." She was not able to do that - all the responses were vague.
• When I got transferred so that I can make the payment and not get jailed, I asked the Senior Officer what time was it in Washington DC. I could hear some typing - a Google search perhaps?
• When I mentioned I could hear computer typing - that is when the call went downhill. They asked if I thought it wasn't real and I told them that clearly, it wasn't.

IRS Information

The Internal Revenue Service has a site where you can Report Phishing.

Remember: Call 1-800-366-4484 to determine if the caller is an IRS employee with a legitimate need to contact you.