Hungry Scammers

[Cudedog]

Wow.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the scam emails are coming into my email account hot and heavy.

These are the emails I have received today alone:

From: "Patric Johnson" (random Gmail address)
Message Title: “Your Invoice No. xxx” (w/ attachment)

From: "PayPal" (random Gmail address) –
Message Title: “Your Ticket No. xxx - payment is confirmed”

From: "Team Norton" (random Gmail address)
Message Title: “Ticket No. xxx status updated on date xxx”

From: "Team Norton" (random Gmail address)
Message Title: “Invoice for order No. xxx”

I deleted all of these without opening the email. Of course, all of the "xxx's" had official-looking numbers.

In case any of you didn't know, if you roll your mouse over the senders name in an email, their actual email address will come up.

I never ever open an email from a random Gmail address. They - along with their attachments - go directly to the trash, unopened, and are immediately deleted.

I pretty much have also grown tired of the daily - multiple - telephone calls from scammers left on my cell phone. I now never ever pick up a phone call where I don't recognize the caller's number.

I have even now changed my voicemail message to state: "Please leave a message. If you do not leave a message, your telephone number will automatically be blocked". And - if they don't leave a message - I block the number.

This new voicemail message, and my habit of blocking numbers that don't leave a message, actually seems to have cut down on my scam telephone calls quite a bit over the last little while.

It is all pretty annoying, though.

Any of you have your own special ways of dealing with scammers and spammers?

Anne

[Bethers]

I guess I'm lucky in that 99% of my spam emails go directly into my spam folder. Same with spams on messenger. I do check my spam folders periodically because sometimes a real message goes there, but that's not often. The phone gets me the most because I sometimes feel I need to answer it because I might be expecting a call that won't be in my list. But usually I don't answer any that I'm not sure of. Like you, if they truly are legit, they'll leave a legit message and I can call back.

[JudyJB]

20+ years ago, I worked in an office where most of the employees were gone most of the time. (It was a consulting and training company, so a lot of people were on the road.) The receptionist would give me all the calls where the person did not speak English or could not describe what they wanted because she knew I was almost always in my office. She also screened and opened a lot of the mail, and passed stuff on to the finance person, but if there was something strange, she would give it to me to investigate.

What I discovered was the amazing amount of mail where companies would send invoices to other companies and expect that the finance people would pay them without questioning them. I was doing some marketing, and ended up with a lot of fake invoices for ads that we did not place. I saved some of them for a lot of years to show my college classes. These invoices looked like real invoices, but way at the bottom in tiny, tiny text, they would have a statement that this was a solicitation for service, not an invoice. The assumption was that no one would read it and the bill would get paid anyway. The names of the companies were sneaky--Yellow Ads Inc., for example. They would even include mock-ups of ads we had supposedly placed to show us these were supposedly legitimate invoices.

I am guessing a lot of these spam invoices work on the premise that someone in the family would pay them, assuming someone else had arranged for the service.

[OregonLuvr]

Anne this time of year I get call after call re: Medicare. Since we can change our plan until Dec 7th I think. So I put my phone on DO NOT DISTURB, except for contacts. Works great!!!! Might just leave it that way ha ha I never answer my phone unless I am expecting a call from an unknown number. Sometimes a doctors office will use their back line to call but they always leave a message. All the emails I get go to SPAM despite what they say I have won LOL I just glance at them as I dont get many emails of importance that I dont know are coming. I am not really paranoid I am just very careful and no need to click on any links to any of my banks etc in an email. I always just go to the site and see if I have any alerts or messages. They send quite a few telling me my Amazon account is frozen, click here. Yeah like that is happening. Amazon wouldnt send you a link, they tell you to go to your account. So it doesnt take me long to scan for legitimate stuff.

[Pooker]

Seems like the smarter we get about catching them, the trickier they get with their wording. The Medicare "thing" always makes me wonder how many seniors don't understand the system and think the ad is an actual message from Medicare! Their t.v. ads bother me, too. They make it sound like only their company offers these wonderful perks.

Another pet peeve: Ads from my banks, credit union, pharmacy, local stores, etc. This morning I had 14 emails waiting for me. Every one of them legitimate businesses. Four or five from my bank - auto loan, mortgage, change checking accounts, etc.; CVS sends at least 3 or 4 a day shouting out discounts, sign up for this or that program, earn "points", etc.; Lowes always has 2 or 3, Home Depot, supermarkets, pet stores, on and on. It's so easy for scammers to get in among these ads especially when they sound real.

Anyone else notice the increase in the phone ones again, too? Donations to every imaginable real sounding nonprofit and even the old, old familiar ones of "Hi Grandma!" and my car's warrantee running out. We seniors have a target on our backs, so beware everybody!

Evie

[Cudedog]

We seniors have a target on our backs, so beware everybody!

Evie

I'll second that 100%!

Thanks,

Anne

[JudyJB]

I get almost no ads through email because I make sure I go into each site that sends me one to unsubscribe to their marketing. I have also periodically gone through print mail and call each company asking them not to send me stuff.

Unfortunately, because of potential medical calls regarding my aunt, I cannot turn off any calls where I do not recognize the number, but I do block them at least after a call.

[Colliemom]

I rarely get any calls anymore because my landline phone is through my Cable company. They have gotten to where they have put emphasis on stopping those calls. My cell phone is not used for business, except for text only, so nobody really has that number. I use my landline phone for the majority of my calls because of its closed captioning capability. As far as emails, it’s junk stuff and an occasionally scam. But because I delete them without opening them or send them to junk, I don’t get a lot. I think they get tired of not getting anywhere with me, so They go elsewhere. Right now, as Karen said, it’s Medicare time, so that stuff increases. But I check emails everyday and delete and clear out my folders.

By the way. Anybody trying to figure out Medicare, check my post ‘Amazon shopping”. That AARP bulletin I posted a link to on there, has a big write up on Medicare. The pros, cons, in and outs of the various plans. Very comprehensive.