30 ways to stop scams article discussion

Cornucopia

I suspect that most people don't know that you can change the PIN on a card.

System

Cornucopia wrote: »

I suspect that most people don't know that you can change the PIN on a card.

The bank next door to my work, the cashiers often show how to change PINs tp customers. Plus its fairly straight forward on the ATM.

Plus the last time I got a new card, they said to change my PIN.

Dave1964

I needed to call my credit card company but only had an expensive 0844 number so I did an internet search for an alternative geographical or Freephone number. I found one and dialled it and met an automated answering service which asked for various credit card information to be keyed in. Thinking I was calling my card company I happily keyed in Card number and DOB but when I was asked for the security code from the back of the card bells stated to ring that this could be a phishing scam so I terminated the call. Having done some investigation of the number I do not think it was a scam but it made me think and I will be more careful with personal data next time I use an online telephone number search.

Ian011

Dave1964 wrote: »

I needed to call my credit card company but only had an expensive 0844 number so I did an internet search for an alternative geographical or Freephone number.

FCA regulations effective 26 October 2015 require banks, card companies and insurers to use 01, 02, 03 or 080 numbers for contact by existing customers. All such businesses have changed their numbers and the correct place to look for these is on their OFFICIAL website.

Never use numbers found directly in a Google search, or on any third-party website, and especially if the number starts 070, 084, 087 or 09. These numbers are, at best, out of date. At worst, they are part of a scam.

Be especially aware of the 'call connection service' scam described in section 5 of this post:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5360819

chrismale

I have twice been called recently by a 'Talktalk' engineer saying there was a problem with my router. I checked my tablet to see I had internet access and my email was working and told them this. They kept insisting I turn on a computer or laptop so I simply pretended I didn't have one. I said my partner came at weekends with a laptop. The second time the caller suggested I borrow one from a neighbor! So I wandered off and left him on the phone for 30 mins. He eventually rang off. Unfortunately most of the numbers these scammers ring from are fake numbers so it it difficult to report them. We need telecoms companies to make it impossible for scammers and nuisance callers to show fake numbers.

Cornucopia

Malcolm_Oliver wrote: »

A simple way to avoid this is to keep a word-processing file (not labelled Password!) on a memory stick with your log-in details and passwords noted. To be ultra-safe, you can "hide" these amongst other words and numbers, and of course you can password-protect the file as well.

Then, instead of keying in the details (which could be logged), just copy the relevant info from the memory stick file and paste it into the website. Once you get used to it, it is actually quicker than typing stuff in, as well as safer.

I'm fairly sure that this makes no difference to Browser-based hacking, and definitely sure it makes no difference to any kind of interception-based hacking.

Hackers can relatively easily find such password files, so it is important that if you need such a thing, you keep the actual passwords obscured (ideally by being incomplete).

You could have a standard approach to completing each password (maybe the last characters are a count of the number of characters in the password, or maybe they are your Cat's birthdate). Either way, it's a bad idea to record passwords in such a way as to make their interpretation and use trivial.

hollydays

Disreputable companies can place lots of fake reviews on sites like
Trustpilot, and object to honest ones on technicalities . Therefore don't just trust online reviews from one or two sources.lots of glowing reviews can be a warning sign to dig deeper.

Bogalot

hollydays wrote: »

Disreputable companies can place lots of fake reviews on sites like
Trustpilot, and object to honest ones on technicalities . Therefore don't just trust online reviews from one or two sources.lots of glowing reviews can be a warning sign to dig deeper.

Also product reviews on Amazon left by people that have been given freebies in return for an "honest" review. I found one reviewer, apparently in their Top 500 reviewers, who was blatantly using a template to post multiple reviews. I now disregard any of these reviews.

LadyDee

Bogalot wrote: »

Also product reviews on Amazon left by people that have been given freebies in return for an "honest" review. I found one reviewer, apparently in their Top 500 reviewers, who was blatantly using a template to post multiple reviews. I now disregard any of these reviews.

One of my pet irritations. Any I come across I mark as "unhelpful" and don't buy the product.

Fitzmichael

I (75) don't fully understand this. I put my email into haveibeenpwned, which then showed Pwned on 1 breached site and found no pastes. Below it showed LinkedIn with 164m sites breached. I don't have membership of this or any 'social media' sites or any interest in them, so what does this mean? Below that it lists the Top 10 breaches, but does that have any relevance to me?