Alexis Wilke's blog

Confirm Your Account (American Express scam email)

Here is an example of a letter from a scammer who wants my American Express login and password details. (That's assuming I have an American Express card, obviously...)

This is interesting because email communication with many credit card institutions and banks now include a few digits from your account. The number of digits varies depending on the institution. The email will also include your name, a message such as "This email is for Alexis Wilke", proving (yeah! right!) that the sender is the dude that has your information.

Here the scammer clearly doesn't have that ...

Submitted by on Thu, 04/09/2020 - 10:05

Instagram name change...

This is the second time I receive an Instagram request for change to the wrong account and all. So I was thinking I could show this here.

It's actually not a bad idea from the hacker. They tell you that the name of your account changed (can it?! really?) and if you'd like to fix, click on this link here.

The problem in their message is that they include the old name which for about 100% of the users would look wrong. But who pays attention to that anyway?!

Then they send you to a form where you have to log backj in before you can fix your name back to normal. Only, that's not ...

Submitted by on Mon, 01/13/2020 - 17:47

Getting constant messages through your contact form?

Contact Form used to spam website owners

Spam Through Contact Forms

As you know, there are many spammers. I'm sure you receive many totally unwanted emails all the time.

Some people make money by selling lists of email addresses of people who never asked to be on said list. I know, I get new emails every day from new lists all the time. That's really annoying.

Now, one thing that we generally do is pass all of those emails through a spam filter. There are many features in a spam filter, particularly, we may want to verify the source. We do that on our end. We tell the source that we're not available at the moment ...

Submitted by on Fri, 07/05/2019 - 16:03

Own A Small Business? Beware Of These Money And Currency Scams!

Pile of one dollar bills with messages on them.

Up to 60 percent of small business owners worry about cyber security, according to MetLife and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Index. But alarmingly, businesses with fewer than 20 employees are less worried about securing their businesses. No matter how many staff you have or how small your business is, it’s important to protect it against fraud. The reality is that small businesses are regularly the targets of money and currency scams, often because startups don’t have the same level of security as businesses that have been around for a long time. Since being the target of fraud can cost your small business between $82,000 and $256,000, according to TechRepublic, it’s vital to secure your money in the same way you would secure your smartphone or other devices. Here is an outline of some of the most common money and currency scams going around at the moment, and how to guard against them.

Submitted by on Thu, 03/29/2018 - 15:01

Did my bank send me this email or is that a scam?

Pliers Cutting Cable—you're going to be deactivated... sorry!

Once in a while I get a few emails telling me that this or that bank account of mine is compromised in some way and to fix it I have to follow a link and log in to my account. Once there, I'll have to proceed with one or two more security questions possibly.

This happens with all large banks. I have not seen it much with smaller banks. Probably because the scammers did not even hear about those smaller banks and a local bank only cater to local people and it's difficult to get a list of those people specifically. Instead, a list of Amercans in general is going to be much easier to ...

Submitted by on Sat, 02/24/2018 - 17:03

Cryptocurrency Scams: Don’t Become a Victim

A Bitcoin on top of a circuit board

Cryptocurrency, otherwise known as a form of digital currency, is a technology that promises to change money and trading forever. According to Forbes, the combination of cryptocurrency and software can lead to exciting initiatives, such as the use of automated trading bots. It sounds exciting, but as with any technological advancement, there are shortcomings. One of these is the various ways in which hackers can bypass security measures of these currency accounts and steal people’s money. A common way in which hackers gain access to your account is by getting your log in details. This ...

Submitted by on Wed, 02/14/2018 - 14:11

Online Customer Loyalty Scheme Or Just A Big Scam?

James Sutton on his Smartphone

Customer loyalty schemes are popular, not just with consumers but criminals who are taking advantage of them to steal people’s money. Loyalty schemes, such as gift cards, are often viewed as a way for companies to connect with, and reward, their valuable customers. Companies with a revenue of over one billion US dollars tend to spend around $140,000 on gift cards for their customers. As for what customers think, an online survey by Deloitte found that participants thought of loyalty reward schemes as something that should be the norm for companies.

Unfortunately, just ...

Submitted by on Mon, 02/05/2018 - 11:33

Domain Name Scams – What You Need To Know To Protect Your Website And Business

Domain Names have been one of the areas that scammers have been plundering in the Internet era

The first internet domains were registered on the internet back in the 80s and by the early 2000s, scammers were already finding sneaky ways to target people through their domain names. Website hacking in the early 2000s cost billions of dollars. Possibly the earliest domain scam can be traced back to the year 2001, when the federal Competition Bureau in Canada sent out a warning about a scam that was targeting people: scammers would send documents that looked like invoices to people, pretending that they’d been sent from a business called the “Internet Registry of ...

Submitted by on Wed, 01/31/2018 - 18:21

Saving Seniors from Online Scams

Picture by Caspar Rubin showing code—code is what many scammers use to steal personal data and use it to transfer money from your account to theirs...

You may think it’s pretty easy to spot and avoid an online scam or fraud. The too good to be true investment opportunity, for example, or the invoice for something that you didn’t buy that requires you to click on a link for more information. You know that clicking on that link is just asking for trouble.  You’re OK aren’t you? You know the signs. You know that you don’t answer these emails by providing your financial information, and you’d never click on an unknown link. Can you say the same of your mom and dad though? Do they know how to spot ...

Submitted by on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 01:33

Insurance Policy Change (July 2012)

How many times do you send an email to a customer about a change in your policies?

Do you think that the following would be enough?

Screenshot of my Junk folder on July 2012

By the way, notice that the spammer changed to the date on the 25th! Which must be a lot of work for him.

P.S. I had a problem with Thunderbird before, but this one really is spam. Don't worry it all ended up in my spam folder, automatically, it is just that I sort by Sender so it all appears together (opposed to sorting by date which is what most of us do.)

Submitted by on Thu, 07/26/2012 - 18:09