Spyware, viruses, & security forum: Have you ever been the victim of a phishing or vishing scam?

To avoid telephone phishing simply buy a caller I.D. phone and use it. If you don'tknow who's calling don't answer. Let them leave a message. If you still don't know them don't call back! Simple.

I received a message on my machine last week stating that I had an opportunity to receive a low rate on my credit card (which card was not mentioned) and to call the number given for more info. I was urged not to wait as the offer was a short time offer. I deleted the message - my alarm bells went off.

If you get phishing messages in your inbox, it's not a cause for concern unless you reply or click links inside the message.

I was either phished or very nearly phished. I think I realised at the last minute. On Myspace, one of my friends posted a comment to my profile, with a link in it to something else, and a message like "I went to this party last night where the girls got naked!". The friend is a practical joker, so I clicked the link expecting it to be some sort of joke.

Before the page loaded, I switched to another tab and did something there, then I came back and noticed the Myspace front page with "You must be logged in to do that!" on it. I started typing my e-mail address and then realised that Firefox should have automatically filled in that information... and looked at the location bar and discovered the hidden .cn country code.

The thing is, at the time I wasn't sure if maybe I *had* already typed my e-mail address and password into the form earlier on in my surfing, so I immediately changed my password. I think now that I just missed out being phished, but the near-miss shook me. I even forgot to report it to the anti-phishing sites.

I wasn't naive enough to put in my keycard PIN or anything like that, of course, but even just a simple Myspace username and password can seriously compromise your life.

This is another telemarketing scam to make unwary people think someone has personal info on them. This is just a very annoying computer generated (mostly) PHONY "SALES TOOL". Another typical example starts with "Becuase of your excellent mortgage payment history, or "You Need to call us immediately about your credit card payments", and so on.... WHAT TO DO:

For live calls if you pick up the phone when unknown caller, ask where they got your info from if this is one of those calls..they will hang up.

NEVER LET THEM TRICK YOU INTO SHARING ANY PERSONAL INFO, EVEN WHAT KIND OF CAR YOU DRIVE, OR STATE YOU LIVE IN ETC.

You should contact you phone company which can block all unknown # callers. Any numbers that do show up on caller ID can be given to your phone company to be removed from any solicitation caller lists. Your phone company will give you the number to call that can do this.

Remember that after a month or two, some of those callers may reappear, and you have to get them removed again. hope this helps.

Some tried to get some information from my Wife's e-mail. She;s a little new to stuff you just shouldn't open.
Well she did and gave out a password. I ancel our credit card and they set up a new account and re-issued new credit cards for us.almost fainted when she told me what she did.
We called the bank, Had to go and change all our accounts and passwords. We had to set up a alert on our credit card, you do this by going to one of the Credit score companies such as, experian, etc and they will contact two other creitd score co's.
We also had to cancel our credit card old account and set up a new account and they sent us new cards.
We also had to report it to the banks anti-phishing Dept.It was quite a hassle to get out of, a lot of runnig a round and phone calls.

Email warnings - don't click n link in an email. Log on to your financial provider (insurance company, warranty company, whatever) and follow up there. If the spoof looks particularly "correct", forward a copy with all headers to your bank, etc.

Phone scams - If my caller ID shows "Unknown Caller", I don't answer. If the caller ID identifies the caller, if asked ANY identity question, I say, "I don't provide personal information on the phone unless I initiate the call." Then, if I think the call might be legitimate, I hang up and place a call to a number that I personally verify, either through the phone book or an online directory.

The phishing is always to do with bank account and my PayPal account.
Re the Bank phishing, I am told my account has been compromised, to log in and change details for security reasons. The problem for the phisher was that they named my account in banks, and Credit Unions that I do not have accounts with.
The PayPal one nearly got me, except as it was in my junk email I opened it and what was written there was not plausible to me.
All my phishing mail is picked up and placed in my junk mail box. I have a phishing button and I just send the phishing mail to there.

Yes, just this last week, I received two calls on different days asking me to call a given number (or press a certain number, not sure) so that they can lower the interest rate on my account. I don't remember there being an account name or credit card name.
Peg

I receive on average about 5 a day supposedly from banks and credit card companies telling me that suspicious activity on my account has been noticed and asking me to log on to a website to rectify the matter and get my account back working again. I immediately delete all this type of emails and only log on direct to my bank account and credit card company. They will have a message in my message box with them if anything is required, and thus I know that it is legit. My advice to anyone receiving requests from any bank or credit card company, even your own, (which I have had), is to delete them. Go direct to your bank and/or credit account company. I received a telephone call from my credit card company in January 08, asking me whether I had authorised a transfer of 6,500 from my account to someone. After stating the above which I replied negative, they asked me for transactions on my account. I asked them how did I know that they were genuinely from my credit card company to which they replied, "take a look at your credit card and telephone the number on the back of the credit card and ask for and extention and the person that had rung. This I did, and it proved to be correct, someone had tried to transfer 6,500 from my account but they had picked it up and stopped payment. They said someone had got hold of my username and password on the internet but payment was not made.. What I cannot make out is why can't they get details of the account to which the money had to be transfered to ilegally and find the account holder. I was issued a new card and new everything has been OK since.

about these things than most & tend to disable anything I am not actually using at the moment. This includes ALL messenger routes, netbios, remote anything, print-sharing etc.

I NEVER open an unexpected E-Mail even from acquaintances without confirming by phone that they sent & did they add an attachments (#)?
Exception about 3 people I know are fully up to date at keeping their machine spotless (my daughter for one).

Have ripped out about 1/2 my hair trying to desperately impress the need to use Blind Copy when forwarding anything. Amazing how many e-mails show 30 or more e-mail addresses & they show up as "live" link backs!!

Of course, by now, I've jinxed myself just by "boasting"!!

I delete Mbytes of junk email, email is not a concern to me. I did want to share a different scam that I dealt with before. I answered the phone and the lady said the usual there is nothing wrong with your credit card". I replied "I know, what is it to you". She said "do you want $50 in free gas?", I was curious now. What she did when I affirmed is told me told hold on, then she proceeded to press keys to join buyers clubs and other junk. I hit # and * several times and hung-up. several months later a bill for $2 appeared on my card for the completed buyers club trial. I called and cancelled. A year later a woman called with the same pitch. I cussed her out then used my voip control panel to block the number.

If you're receiving unsolicited email related to the sex industry and a minor has access to your computer, you can have them charged as there is the potential that the minor could be exposed to inappropriate material.

I'm italian and quite every day I receive from banks or Poste Italiane
request of number of cards or other private informations.
Sometime I receive announce of reward, but I'm requested informations to have the money I won (LIES).
I don't use internet banking,so I' dont answer:
Hope my experience would be useful.
Emma

Both my spouse and I get several phishing e-mails a week. We just delete them, unless they purport to come from a company we deal with. In that case, we report them.

This morning I received a vishing call. A pleasant woman's voice identified herself and her company and went on to tell me that they had "reviewed my resume' and thought I would be perfect for the position and Mr. XXX....." Somewhere in there, I tried to interject "But I haven't SENT any resumes!" And discovered it was a recorded call! We have our phone blocked for solicitation, shouldn't that apply to this type of call?

Jean
Ketchikan, Alaska

Twice now I have received a help message from colleagues to the effect that they are at some obscure place overseas and they have been robbed of all cash and cash-cards. They request help and ask for their hotel bill to be paid and give a phone number pro porting to be the hotel. Subsequent contact with these colleagues identified the scam.

Somehow these people are getting e-mail addresses. Both times they have paired up addresses of academic colleagues, perhaps seeing these as likely travelers to conferences abroad.