Category: Spam

May 23, 2016

The Magazine Subscription Scam

You receive an invoice for renewing a magazine subscription – by email or in the post. If you already receive the publication, you may think nothing of it and pay up. If you’re suspicious and read more closely, you may find it’s actually inviting you to subscribe.

It doesn’t come from the publisher but a third party subscription service who may or may not be legit. Sometimes, there’s an offer to supply a free copy but you still must give your credit card details for a full subscription “which you can cancel at any time.”

Your card, of course, will be charged and you might get the magazine, but you’ll pay way more than you need to and find it difficult to cancel — the scammers don’t give you a phone number.

Don’t be fooled. Read the invoice. Don’t pay if you’re not a subscriber or if it’s not a genuine renewal notice from the publisher. If you want to try a magazine, visit its website or get a subscription card from inside a current issue.

May 21, 2016

Update on Those Time-Wasters

So, what rubbish emails and calls have there been to Brooklands Radio station in the last few days?

A company named Toople trying to sell us business broadband. – never heard of them.

A company offering merchant cash advances against sales – we’re a volunteer radio station – we don’t sell stuff.

A Captain Tim of the US Army 82^nd Airborne division serving in Afghanistan. He wants help with securing two trunks and will pay handsomely for that help. He wants to know my name, address, telephone number, occupation and a copy of my drivers licence , which of course contains birth date and a photo. – This couldn’t possibly be an attempt at identity theft. NO. Never.

An email from a company telling us about a private jet service in Hong Kong – no use to us – we only ever use helicopters.

An email from an SEO company says “Over 80% of people in your industry search for and buy your products online” – Generic rubbish.

A set of emails titled “Contractor Working”, “Payroll Solutions”, “Contractor Call” etc.. advertising systems for contract workers. – This is just lead generation. The marketing company sending this stuff will earn money for every reply they pass onto their client.

These people just waste our time and clog up the Internet with rubbish.

May 7, 2016

Latest Time-Wasters

So, what rubbish emails and calls have there been to Brooklands Radio station in the last few days?

We received a series of emails that are bounce back messages as the email address was in error i.e. the email address they were sent to doesn’t exist or is over limit. How did this happen? We didn’t send the emails. Some scammer ‘spoofed’ our email address and sent out the messages. Spoofing means to make an email look like it came from someone else. This is very difficult to stop.

2. A message in French saying someone had left us a voice message on a site named kjiji. – Just a scam.

3. A message from Amazon saying our order has been dispatched, with a zip file to open. Yet another stupid scam message.

4. A message from a debt collection agency offering to collect our outstanding debts – we’re a volunteer organisation. No debts. But they didn’t bother to check of course, just fill the Internet with spam messages.

5. An email titled ‘The Quickest Way to Obtain Funds Generated From the Internet” from a Mackenzie Cremor (that’s a great fake name). The email is just a series of links to random websites. It looks like this spam is intended to tell if the email address is Live i.e. if they don’t get back an error message then they know it’s a real email address. Time-Wasters.

These people just waste our time and clog up the Internet with rubbish.

May 6, 2016

Pre-Paid Return Envelopes

Do you get those letters from finance companies saying you have been pre-approved for a loan or a credit card?

Often they have pre-paid return envelopes.

Now that’s an opportunity too good to miss.

Send it back to them complete with whatever other sales letters you got that day (don’t leave your address on anything though) or send them back folded sheets of newspaper or any rubbish to hand.

Or you can be creative – fill the envelope with confetti or shredded sales leaflets.

They pay the postage whatever the contents. It’s their envelope – you’re just returning it to them.

If we all return the envelopes then perhaps they’ll stop sending out the stupid letters that we don’t want.

April 30, 2016

More Time-Wasters

So, what rubbish emails and calls have there been to Brooklands Radio station in the last few days?

A mailshot by a company in property refurbishment. Irelevant to us, but an understandable mistake as it’s not obvious to the sender whether we own our building or just rent.

An idiot who keeps sending us emails about fuel cards for our staff. There’s no unsubscribe button on the email which means she is unprofessional and she keeps sending these emails despite being told we don’t have vehicles.

A basement waterproofing company sending special offers. Could be genuine but the company has a .xyz domain name which usually means an organisation that doesn’t fit the normal .com .co,.uk .org etc. classification. Plus the second half of the email is hundreds of random words which means the sender is trying to avoid being classed as spam. Therefore it must be spam.

A scam email about losing weight. Obviously a scam as the link in the email is actually about home equity and the email address is a .website domain – not used by proper businesses.

A finance company offering asset finance. We’re a volunteer organisation. No loans, but they didn’t bother to check what kind of an organisation we are – just sent out the blind mailshot.

These people just waste our time and clog up the Internet with rubbish.

April 28, 2016

This is Nasty: Investment in Burial Plots

We received an email at the radio station titled “Rainham Cemetery – 40% Returns within 24 months”

They want to make money somehow from a cemetery. That’s worrying.

The email is from KT Marketing and seems to be genuine.

It says “Purchase one of the last available burial plots in Greater London, well below market value.

Returns paid within 24 months. Burial space to run out within 10 years in the South East.”

So, they seem to be saying that there are few burial plots left in London so buy them now and sell them back to the people who will be desperate to get one for their beloved relatives and thence have to pay exorbitant prices because of nasty little horrors who’ve bought up the few remaining plots.

How could you sleep at night if you made money off the back of bereaved people.

This is a nasty business.