WARNING- Very convincing scam!

HGLTsuperstar

Thought you might be interested in this email I received today. Normally just delete the requests from Nigeria for receiving their cash etc, but this was very convincing:
BANK Transfer Confirmation
Please retain for your records
Thank you

Transaction details:
Transaction for the value of: GBP 356.95
Description: ANS Payroll
Merchant's bank ID: 735
Pre-Authorisation Date/Time: 06/Sep/2005 12:09:52
Transaction ID: 238973284
This is not a tax receipt.


This confirmation indicates that your bank transaction has been processed successfully.
Your new account in ANS PAYROLL SYSTEM has been successfully created.


If you have any questions about your payment (including refunds, delivery status, wanting to
cancel your payment),please do not hesitate to contact our team by visiting

ans-payroll dot com (***Original link removed by Board Guide***)


and sending contact form.

got through to the website and its a US property service, so ended up calling Philadelphia who told me this is a virus scam that originated in the UK, and they have received a number of similar calls this morning. Its nothing to do with them, they will not be taking any money etc but as you can see the message looks pretty authentic. So for the cost of a 5min call to the US (at 3p a min) it was worth it to put my mind at rest.

soolin

These have been doing the rounds for months, an obvious scam with or without a virus as it asks the receiver to log in through a link in the mail.

Soo

HGLTsuperstar

No it doesn't ask you to log in, it just says your account has been set up. Well it worried me, so thought I'd share, but seems I'm getting out-of-date scams, feel left out now!

aerostar

Info.

I have seen a number of different versions, what happens is when you click on the link, it goes to a rogue website, which attempts to download a Trojan program, if successful it logs your key strokes, passwords etc !!!.

If you have the latest security patches, and anti virus, and keep them up to date then you should get a warning !!!! however treat ALL e-mails from friend or foe as suspicious - NEVER believe what you have been told UNLESS you have done some research your self.

This is especially important with chain type e-mails and those that say, "new virus undetectable have you this file in your system" etc etc and also those chain mails that purport to be a good cause, as they can be ways of gathering peoples e-mail addresses for spam.

Your biggest security threat is yourself !

soolin

Very true aerostar, Actually, for some reason Mcafee picked up the first couple of these I got as a potential virus hazard, but last week let one through to my email. They may well have started embedding the virus a little deeper but I did check for Mcafee updates and did a full scan just in case.

I'm probably over cautious as I believe you can only trigger the virus if you click on the link, but i prefer to take no chances.

As for you HGLT superstar don't feel left out, I can trade you a couple of Nigerian 419 scam mails and a dodgy looking one about 'vitamins'..it's rather like poker isn't it

Soo

April2

HGLTsuperstar wrote:

Thought you might be interested in this email I received today. Normally just delete the requests from Nigeria for receiving their cash etc, but this was very convincing:

BANK Transfer Confirmation
Please retain for your records
Thank you

Transaction details:
Transaction for the value of: GBP 356.95
Description: ANS Payroll
Merchant's bank ID: 735
Pre-Authorisation Date/Time: 06/Sep/2005 12:09:52
Transaction ID: 238973284
This is not a tax receipt.

This confirmation indicates that your bank transaction has been processed successfully.

Your new account in ANS PAYROLL SYSTEM has been successfully created.

If you have any questions about your payment (including refunds, delivery status, wanting to cancel your payment),please do not hesitate to contact our team by visiting (***link removed by Board Guide***) and sending contact form.

I'm sorry but I really do not see how such an e-mail can be 'very convincing' unless you actually already know who/what ANS Payroll is, have recently opened an account with them and are expecting to receive exactly £356.95 from them.

If not, it's a very obvious e-mail scam of some sort.

ljonski

Just got one of these myself. If i wouldnt have been savvy ,i might have fallen for it myself. After all one click could cause untold worth of damage!
Thankyou to Soolin for putting me right

chrisw

I hope nobody clicked on the link to ans-payroll in the first post. I did to have a look and the virus checker has flagged up a Trojan program.

HGLTsuperstar

April2 wrote:

I'm sorry but I really do not see how such an e-mail can be 'very convincing' unless you actually already know who/what ANS Payroll is, have recently opened an account with them and are expecting to receive exactly £356.95 from them.

If not, it's a very obvious e-mail scam of some sort.

Well pardon me for being nervy, but as my credit card a few months ago was being used in Kuwait whilst sitting in my purse in Sussex, I am a little jumpy. The whole point was I hadn't done any transactions for that amount, but someone else could have done it for me. So I'll just overreact more quietly from now on

soolin

HGLTsuperstar wrote:

Well pardon me for being nervy, but as my credit card a few months ago was being used in Kuwait whilst sitting in my purse in Sussex, I am a little jumpy. The whole point was I hadn't done any transactions for that amount, but someone else could have done it for me. So I'll just overreact more quietly from now on

You cannot protect yourself against fraud in cases where your credit card is cloned and used overseas. The same thing happened on my brand new Tesco Visa a while ago. However, if you ever have a suspicion that your account is being used fraudulently, like getting an odd receipt or something, check with the CC company, not with the company where the card was supposedly used. Your credit card company can either reassure you that no payments have been made using your card, or if there has been a breach of security, they can cancel the payments and stop your card immediately. There is absolutely no need for you to worry about chasing up fraudulent payments, lets the banks worry for you.

However, the important thing is to never knowingly compromise your security. You can protect yourself by following rules, like never click on links in emails that you are not expecting. Be cautious by all means, but don't actually help the scammers by letting a trojan in, a key stroke logger would have had the ability to log your passwords and pins for any online banking you were doing, as well as getting details of your credit card, and security number if you had used it online.

I am cautious, it is a horrible thing to find out that a Visa card has been used by someone when it is still in your bag, but familiarise yourself with scams you can prevent and keep safe that way.

Soo