The scam: Person of Indian extraction calls a home user claiming to be from Microsoft declaring that the users pc is infected, slow, sending out spam, and basically needs to be repaired. They then proceed very forcefully to try and direct the user to a website where they will remote on to their computer and ‘repair’ the problems for which they have suggested exist. They use strong misleading language, switching to and from their supervisors,  and any means necessary to try to extract or extort up to €159 from their victim. They’ll use language like; “Your licensing is invalid”, “You’re sending out Viruses”, etc,etc.

This is occurring all around the country at the moment from what I can tell. I know of 5-10 people who have been approached by this company in the last 3-4 weeks. Ironically, we have also received over 10 phone calls from this company who are amazingly brazen and bully-like in their approach. One of our customers was directed to the Microsoft Event Viewer  in an attempt to point out their terrible pc plight. The Event Viewer is, even at the best of times loaded with of errors, and any trip here is going to show such messages. When or if they call you, HANG UP and don’t let them waste your time. These people should be avoided at all times for various reasons;

1. You don’t know who they are or what they are going to do with your pc once they gain control of it.
2. You don’t know how much fun they’re going to have on your credit card.
3. €159 for a Remote IT Repair Service would be a rip-off even in Celtic Tiger Ireland. We provide the service ourselves (Commercial Only) for just €65.

Their link is here:

-          The website looks like something from the 80’s – Clue 1
-           5 international phone numbers and no business address – Clue 2

Need anymore. Hope not! The Clue is in the Cold Call..

Here’s another Phishing scam doing the rounds. It caught my eye because I can imagine a few people being caught out by it. Even the fake link (see image below)  requires a second glance to be sure it’s not actually Google who are contacting you.

The other day I wrote an article to explain what the term Phishing meant. Somewhere in the middle of the piece I figured that it would be a good idea to use an example of a phishing mail that I myself have received in the past. Having received hundreds maybe thousands, I indexed through over 10 years of emails and could not find one single example. Seems I might be too fast with the delete button when it comes to spam.

Then – Not even 24 hours after hitting the ‘Publish’ button, a beauty of one arrived! The example I had been looking for came hurtling through my inbox.The scam claims to come from the Irish Revenue who are telling me I was due a VAT refund of €734.21.  All I had to do was follow the link and claim my long lost hard earned cash.

Read the rest of this entry »

What is it? Phishing is the act of sending a fraudulent mail to someone under the disguise of a legitimate name or organisation. The intention is to dupe the recipient of the mail into believing they are accessing a bonifide website when they are in fact unintentionally handing over private and confidential information to cyber criminals.

What does it look like? Most current phishing mails are designed to take you to a fake copy of a well established business. They achieve this by asking you to reset your password or to inform you of new banking services. In other cases, they use their own form of irony; “We suspect someone may have tried to illegally access your online banking account in the past 24 hours. Was this you? Please check your account now. Visit http://www.yourbank.ie and reset your password to protect your account”.  

After clicking on the link, the user is taken to an exact copy of their bank where they begin to enter their online passwords. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the criminals will now have enough information to access your real online bank account. Chances are, they’ll have emptied the real account while you’re still wondering why after 10 years of using the same online password, it has now suddenly decided to not work!

To avoid becoming a victim, only visit a website where you have to enter your login details by typing the address manually.

Update: 12th March 2010. Here is an in-depth article on a phishing scam we recently received.

2010 got off to a flying start when I discovered yet another scam in the post. This time, I was introduced to the little brother of The European City Guide Scammers. Actually, more like, his twin brother called Internet Register Ireland.

It’s basically the same scam by a different name. You can see the letter I received here. Since it’s the same scam, I’ll give the same advice; Bin the form and send back the envelope.

 Postage is on them

 PS – Test your creativity by exploring what you might incude with the prepaid envelope.

The scams section of the blog is growing fast! Here’s another spam, scam or as I call it ‘mailware’ to add to the list. You’ll most likely see variations of the mail I received (see below).  

See scam mail below dotted line.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

Did you receive the e-mail which I sent to you recently (copied here-below)?
Please confirm since I have had problems lately with emails intercepted by spam-filters set too high.

Cordially,

Marc Shneider, Ph.D.
marcshneider@mplw.net 
I am Dr. Marc Schneider and I work for Multilingual Search Engine Optimization Inc. in Washington DC ( Tel: 1 202 250-3645) – I would like to speak with the person in charge of your international clientele. Who is my contact? Who should I speak to??

In fact, after visiting http://www.pctechnix.ie . , I have noticed that your website cannot be found on foreign search engines (I tested it on Hispanic search engines, German search engines, Asian search engines, etc.) Our company is specialized in multilingual search engine promotions in 28 languages . From the Japanese Google to the German Yahoo, from the AOL in Spanish to the MSN in Chinese, we can show you how to develop a true international online presence by promoting your website on foreign search engines.
Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that Internet scams are alive and well in China. I’ve noticed there are a few scams going around now which has prompted me to setup a new Scams section on our blog. Many of our customers (including ourselves) have received the following email regarding the protection of their company domain name across different domain extensions. This email plays on the fears of the recipient, especially since China isn’t as strict or regulated when it comes to domain ownership.

Our Advice: Add senders domain to your list of blocked senders , and delete Jacks e-mail. 100% scam artist.

Original Mail below:
From: jack wu [mailto:jack.wu@pxsolutions.cn]

Sent: 14 July 2009 10:59
To: info
Subject: Dispute–concerning the intellectual property rights in China
Importance: High
(If you are NOT CEO,please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent.Thanks.)

 Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. We have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application. One company which called “MID Design SPA” are applying to register “PCTECHNIX” as internet brand and CN domain names as below :

- pctechnix.asia
- pctechnix.cc
- pctechnix.com.cn
- pctechnix.hk
- pctechnix.info
- pctechnix.me
- pctechnix.mobi

on July 14th,2009. After our initial examination, we found that the internet brand applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we will deal with it, hope to get the affirmation from your company. If your company has not authorized the aforesaid company to register these, Please contact us as soon as possible. In addition,we hereby affirm that our time limit for dissent application is 7 days.If your company files no dissent within the time limit,we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by “MID Design SPA”.

Best Regards,
Jack Wu
Senior Consultant
Phone: +86-21-68247379
Fax: +86-21-68247376
Website: www.pxsolutions.cn
Address: Room 1501,No.12,Lane 788,Xiupu Road,Nanhui District,ShangHai,China

This letter arrived in the post recently. These scam artists from Barcelona have been doing the rounds for some time now. The letter explains that you simply need to sign the form and return it in the envelope provided (no stamp required). I suppose the nature of its simplicity is why many businesses in Ireland have been caught out by the scam. 

Once the form is returned, the business owner is hit with a bill for €987 (see bottom of form) . Worse still, they seem to be quite intent on getting this money afterwards.

My advice is simple. Firstly, if you haven’t already done so, destroy the form. Thats the simple part.

Finally, send back the envelope. You may find some comfort in the knowledge that you have cost these idiots the price of a stamp!