Another Scam !!

Actually I had a similar and went through the official telephone site. It was their genuine number. I don't understand what's happening either. In my case it was O2

Tiggy I've had loads of these. I keep forwarding them to BT.

And another - purportedly from Lloyds Bank, entitled "Staying secure online", and addressing me as "Valued customer" It tells me that they are starting a new secure system, and I should follow their link to check in and alter my details. I am not even a LLoyds customer, let alone a valued one.

I went to my "view" menu, and from there to "message source", copied the whole of that, which includes a lot of technical stuff that means nothing to you and me but can help experts to trace where it comes from.

Then I googled "Lloyds bank scam emails" and found an email address to send a message to them, with all the information pasted in.

I keep getting emails entitled "Your forthcoming Court appearance" or various similar wording. I never click on them, but it's worrying me in case I am supposed to be appearing in Court! I can't think why I would, though.

And emails in Chinese writing. I get loads of those and always delete them.

I get quite a few, but today's nearly had me. It was from Parcelforce telling me the tracking number for my order from Dotcomgiftshop. I do order from them, and was just about to click when I remembered that I had managed to find the most recent gift elsewhere, so hadn't ordered from them after all.

Of course, I copied down the tracking no, went onto parcelforce's website and no such tracking no. exists.

It's a minefield!

I don't understand why I don't get any of these scam emails (not that I want them!!!). I do a lot of internet ordering from my hotmail account, plus correspondence etc., yet I rarely receive spam or anything dodgy.

I've had a look in my junk mail file and there aren't many there either. Perhaps hotmail is so old-hat spammers and scammers don't bother with me!

Perhaps you have good antivirus software, Ana? I pay for Norton, and now that I'm with BT internet I seem to have acquired McAfee for free. I'm assuming this is why all the nasties go straight into my junk mail, but perhaps I'm just lucky. My DS keeps telling me I'm wasting my money paying for Norton instead of just downloading free antivirus software, but I feel strangely comforted when I see those little scans being performed while I surf the interweb. No doubt I'm living in a fool's paradise...

Perhaps not, Maggiemaybe. I think I posted on another thread that I have Norton antivirus too - £22 or so a year isn't that much to pay for peace of mind!

I have McAffe )and another special anti-everything one just for this next couple of weeks until this virus scare is over) but this will not stop you getting scams.

Scams are not viruses in themselves.

Some will trick you into opening a link which will then introduce a virus/Trojan horse/etc and that's when your protection should kick in with a big red exclamation mark or similar.

Doesn't explain why I don't get any of these spams/scans though Aka

'scams' I meant!

I have Norton too Ana, and I don't get much spam/scams either.

It's nothing to do with virus protection and everything to do with them getting hold of your email address. I've got three email addresses. The BT one I give out to all and sundry and that's the one I get scams etc through on.

The other two are just for special friends and I NEVER give these out to companies asking for my email. So consequently these are 'safe' from scams, advertising, penile extensions, please send money to my account in Nigeria, etc....

I use my hotmail address for all and sundry and don't get spam or scams. I use it for ordering from everywhere from ebay to M&S!

So your explanation doesn't make sense to me, Aka!

Perhaps you've just been lucky up till now??? Don't you get ANY unsolicited emails at all?

But M&S and eBay must be pretty reputable sites anyway.

Oh, I order from many much more disreputable sites too, Aka!

Seriously, I've been with hotmail for about 15 years and have only had a handful of dodgy emails during that time.

TMI Ana

I have a Hotmail account, use Avast! free anti virus and (fortunately so far) I don't get them either.

My SIL has just sent me an email about safeguarding the pooter against scams. He uses iCloud Dropbox and a variety of backup systems. He works in computer security and says he is probably more cautious than many of his colleagues.

I must add that I bought an external hard drive a week ago and put all my photos and files on it and I'm going to export all my email addresses to it today. I use Avasti which is free and downloaded by the nice man who patiently tidies up the pooter annually for me.

It's a good idea to have an external backup and then if the worst happens you can recover a previous healthy copy of your hard drive.

I backup with Macrium Reflect - a full image once a week, and cumulative part-backups daily. I also have 'cloud' backups of data folders.