Category: information

Stay Safe on Western Union

Western Union is a money transfer system. It is very much favoured by online fraudsters as once you have made a payment in Western Union the money is untraceable and no way can you get it back.

Western Union recognise this problem but there’s little they can do as the whole process is designed to allow for easy money transfer as if paying cash. Untraceable.

Western Union do publish guidance on how to avoid scams and stay safe.

They publish a list of Money Transfer Never-Evers as they call them.

These are:-

  • Never send money to people you haven’t met in person.
  • Never send money to pay for taxes or fees on lottery or prize winnings.
  • Never use a test question as an additional security measure to protect your transaction.
  • Never provide your banking information to people or businesses you don’t know.
  • Never send money in advance to obtain a loan or credit card.
  • Never send money for an emergency situation without verifying that it’s a real emergency.
  • Never send funds from a cheque in your account until it officially clears—which can take weeks.
  • Never send a money transfer to an individual for online purchases.

If you follow those rules then you will be a lot safer using money transactions with Western Union.

There are countless other money transfer businesses of course including TransferWise, Currencies Direct, OFX and Moneygram.

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How Does Social Engineering Work for Scammers?

In this context, social engineering means to manipulate someone into doing what you want e.g. to type in login and password on a fake website so the scammer gets that information.

So, ‘social engineering’ is the methods used to trick people into doing what the scammers want.

It could be a phishing email asking you to urgently login in to your internet banking account or to call a support number as your computer has been infected with malware or a request from a company executive to urgently transfer money.

Generally, we prefer to trust people so if someone calls saying they are from your bank and they know your name and account – it’s easy to believe rather than to question everything. Maybe you answer their security questions and that gives them the details they need to access your account. It can be as simple and quick as that.

An Example Credit Card Payment Scam

A company selling telecom services receives an email from a possible new customer:

Hello,

This is Bill, I have just moved into the area and I need a new phone line.

Do you accept payment by credit card?

What information do you need in order to quote for the work?

Thanks

Bill

After a reply from the Telecoms Company confirming they do accept credit cards, , Bill’s next email sets up the conditions of the scam.

He’s in hospital waiting on an operation.  Lots of description to make it clear he cannot take phone calls or speak to anyone and very much needs help. He describes what he wants fitted in each room and then describes the removal company that is helping him to move while he’s in hospital and they can let the telecoms company in to do a survey if needed.

The purpose of this is to set-up the Telecoms company to accept an over payment by credit card from Bill then pay the removals company, as they cannot accept credit card payment and Bill can’t pay them any other way while in hospital.

This story is complicated and relies on the kindness of the Telecoms company to take the money and pass it on but also on their desire for business.

The telecoms company agrees, takes the credit card payment and then pays the removals company as per the instructions.  For example taking £1,000 for their work up front and £2,000 to pay to the removals company.

It all sounds quite safe, but then comes the sting.

The card was stolen but not cancelled straightaway and when the credit card company do cancel it then will claim the £3,000 back from the Telecoms Company who will end up out of pocket for the work they’ve done but also for the £2,000 paid to the removals company which was a fake operation.

That’s the credit card over payment scam

There are countless similar stories designed to get the punter to accept an over payment and it never ends well for the punter.

The stories are sometimes rough and have spelling and grammatical mistakes – to elicit sympathy for the scammer and at other times the stories have been polished by repeated use.

NEVER accept an over payment.

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Trojan Horse Emails

“Trojan Horse” email is named after the famous huge wooden horse left by the Greeks outside the city of Troy. When taken inside, at night soldiers climbed out of the inside compartments of the horse and opened the city gates leading to its downfall.

A Trojan horse email is one that looks harmless but contains a malicious hidden payload.

They usually offer the promise of something you might be interested in—an attachment

containing a joke, a photograph, or a warning about something important..

When opened, the attachment may do any or all of the following:

  • give a hacker access to your files
  • install software that records your keystrokes and sends the results to an attacker, allowing a hacker to find your passwords and other confidential information
  • install software that monitors your online transactions and activities looking for confidential information

Trojan Horse emails commonly claim to be e-postcards or jokes or something else funny or a news item but they can be anything.

Make sure you have up to date anti-virus and anti-malware installed on all computers

Never click on a link in an email unless you are sure it’s safe.

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Nicehash Bitcoin Theft

Criminals love Bitcoin because transactions are largely untraceable, no physical objects to store and can be converted into any currency.

Speculators love Bitcoin because although the value changes wildly and is unreliable, it has risen hugely during 2017.

Lots of scammers are pushing Bitcoin as much as they can – get the punters hooked while the price is rising.

Almost certainly it will crash at some point as there are no physical assets to underpin Bitcoin.

One other group that love Bitcoin is corporate hackers – break into an organisation that has Bitcoins stored on its servers, steal them and escape. There’s no cash or gold to move – it’s all on computer.

Nicehash was broken into and $64 million in Bitcoins stolen. Nicehash doesn’t know whether client accounts have been compromised.

Nicehash is an unusual business – It’s based in Slovenia and mines Bitcoins on behalf of its customers.

This is a strange process for which there is no correlation with real world currencies. Mining is how more bitcoins are created and requires huge amounts of computing power to solve equations.

If the price of Bitcoins continues to stay at such high levels then we can expect even more of this kind of attack.

Nicehash say that “Highly professional” hackers made off with around 4,700 Bitcoin and the Nicehash service was taken down so they could assess what had happened.

At least gold can be stored in a vault.

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Bank Transfer Scam Compensation

In 2016, Which? Consumer Magazine launched a Super Complaint to the Payment Systems Regulator. Which? is one of only a few organisations empowered by government to raise super complaints on behalf of the general public.

The super-complaint said:- “We think banks need to do more to protect customers who are tricked into transferring money to a fraudster.”

Which? thinks banks should shoulder more responsibility for money lost to bank transfer scams. Customers who lose money due to scams via direct debit or credit and debit cards are reimbursed, for example, but not bank transfers. This would give banks an incentive to develop better mechanisms to prevent the fraud in the first place.

Which? Say “You only have to read the harrowing real life stories in our super-complaint to realise that these scams are often so sophisticated that it’s impossible for people to be savvy enough to completely protect themselves. And the people being scammed are not only the stereotypical vulnerable groups; they are often financially and technologically literate.”

Which? did some research by asking more than 1,000 members of the public if they could spot the difference between real and spoof emails and found that 50% of people were fooled by these sophisticated scam emails.

At last check, 359,823 people had signed the petition about this matter.

The Payment Systems Regulator has announced it is consulting on plans to reimburse victims of bank transfer scams. From the 1 January 2018, people who’ve been victims of a bank transfer scam will only need to deal with their bank when making a complaint – not the bank the fraudster was with. This means that banks will provide access to a dedicated team of staff trained to deal with scams.

However, the Regulator is also consulting on a reimbursement scheme for people who are tricked into transferring money to a fraudster when their bank failed to do enough to protect them. This is very good news.

The Regulator’s actions in response to the super-complaint will go a long way to tackling these scams. However, if banks are going to solve this problem and really protect their customers, they must also look at what other steps they can take to stop these scams from happening in the first place.

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Are Online Directories Still Useful

In the early days of the World Wide Web, a lot of people were setting up websites, but for people trying to use the web – the problem was how to find what they were looking for.  The idea of online directories made sense as online versions of paper directories, which had been useful for a long time.

Online directories appeared by the hundred and served their purpose until the search engines became effective enough to replace them as the best way to find websites, topics, phrases, names etc. on the Internet.

Online directories can still serve a purpose as part of an online marketing strategy. For example, they are handy for businesses that do not have a website. This at least gives the business name, address and contact details findable on the Internet.

The Big Two Directories

There are two online directories that are still highly regarded  by the search engines.  These are the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) and the Yahoo directory.  Publishing in either of these is difficult as a free entry may not be reviewed for months and even then there is no guarantee of inclusion.  There is the option to pay for a review but again that does not guarantee inclusion in the directory.

Niche Directories

Having an entry in a niche directory can be useful and can get traffic to your website.  These directories target a  specific to an industry or an interest etc.  If your website falls into such a specific  niche, then consider an entry.

This can have a positive effect on your website ranking if the directory is well respected.  Trade Association directories are the main niche directories.

Free or Paid Listings?

Most directories offer free listings with the option to pay to get a better listing such as with more photos, more prominence in searches etc.

But, it is difficult to justify spending a lot of money on an enhanced listing when the money could be spent on direct online advertising instead with Google, Bing, Facebook and others.

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