Another Email Scam (gmail)

Thank you @littlewitch66 for sharing this so that we all can all be cautious. You are so wonderful that you shared caring about our friends. I have never received any emails like these but I don't open emails which I don't know or seems malicious to me. Because those emails are a source of malware and simply clicking on will place a malware right in our system. I have lost my OS in the past due to this and from then I will be careful when opening emails.

 

I know it can be a worry because you want to check to see that no one has been using your card fraudulently, and that's what they prey on. What I should add is that if you do have a webcam to cover that up too if it's built in and only remove the cover when you want to skype of Facetime. This is because some hackers can remotely access it and see what you are doing.

When I was doing some surveys or click links on offer walls my webcam would come on all of a sudden with lots of pop up ads. I don't do them any longer, even reputable looking ones because you just don't know. Then all the offer wall or site will say is that you should report it, but it's all at your own risk.

 

Thank yor for the information you have shared and for caring. It is very worrisome to think that our info is not secure online and that will make us click on links we are not supposed to. I had a malware attack my computer because of it and now my pc is not performing as it did. That is why I don't click on any email with an unknown email address, I have learned my lesson.

 

Whenever I check my e-mails and there are unknown e-mails which usually goes to my spam folder, I don't open them. It's clearly that it's something fishy if they send me something saying that I won something from a raffle that I didn't join or delivering me something I didn't order. Yes for some people it might be intriguing and tempting to check but I'd rather not just to be safe. Thanks for sharing this anyway!

 

I regularly receive spam and scam emails, however, I have never fallen into their trap. I get emails like I own a lottery, a rich woman wants to give half of her wealth to me etcetra. When I received one of these emails for the first time, I was like "what the f..." but soon I realized that this is a way to trap me. I have of course been scamed online, but it was not through gmail or any other email service. An easy way to avoid being scammed is buy looking as the sender address. If you find suspicious, just delete the email

 

Thanks for sharing and the piece of advice you gave too. Experiences like these are the main reasons why I am skeptical about some of the sites I visit and the kinds of apps I installed. There was a time I got a scam email promising some huge sum of money all of a sudden but before I can get it to I have to make some investment which was relatively very small compared to the promised money. I was doubting until a good friend of mine finally cleared me it was scam.

 

Yeah, spam can be quite scary. My advice is just click the email and not the link, if something doesn't add up then just delete it. No point in getting worried over false information. I would also advice getting a good anti virus, just in case you accidentally click on a bad link. I can't tell you how many times I fell for spam.

 

You should never open a link where from an email that you are not familiar with, you managed to stay safe this time but be careful in the future.

 

Opening an email not exactly addressed to you is a mistake much more when you click the link inside. Last week my cousin was pestering me for assistance because she had clicked the link in the spam email. When she opened her Facebook, it was asking for a verification of the account details. In panic, she had changed all her passwords.

 

Thanks for sharing the valuable information. I would like to share with all about gmail account when you've opened your email, special security click. At the bottom right of your gmail you'll see Details. Click on it then a little window will pop up on your left side then you'll see all your logins with your IP address. There is a click on that page that disconnects all logins to your gmail. When you click it all will be disconnected. Every time you login check Details and be sure you're the only one logining into your account. If not be sure to report it to gmail's security people. Thanks again for the information.

 

It does make you wonder how safe these sites are with your details. I use an email these days that is generic with no clue of a name, so when they try to send spam it says Dear wundercook or whatever I have chosen. That's one way to help spot fraudulent emails.

I don't like providing my address to sites where they won't be physically posting me things, and some do this to 'verify' your location. I think this is wrong as you could be renting and it would never show up anywhere, plus it creates more of a danger if they sell the information. Once I joined one of those writing sites where you post and they say they will share revenue; they shut down and then sold the emails to other companies and I was bombarded.

 

That's why I never click on such phishing links, they are just out to get your info. If I never ordered anything then it's obvious that that email is not for me, right? I also have an anti-keylogging and screenshot software, where it has revealed that Google Chrome has been tracking what I type on searches. It makes sense why they do that though. How are they able to auto-fill what we type in their search bar right? So they had to see what we are typing. So intrusive of them.

 

This is surely unique and new way of scamming. So far never encounter it. Thanks for the info, I will keep this in mind. Haven't you checked the URL before clicking it. I always check before clicking it, if I found something misleading in URL then I won't click it anyway. These days hackers are getting smarter, so better we too get double smarter to avoid them.

 

This is why I don't like Chrome and Google in general because it is so invasive. Even if I get an email with a keyword I end up with ads based on it whenever I do a search. One problem is when you sign up for some sites they do share the information with other companies that do mass spam cold emails and that is part of the condition when you sign up. Then it's hard to unsubscribe, and these people may go on to sell it again so you can never trace the true source of it all.

 

It's really very rare with Gmail but if it was the case then it is really worrying. As you said that the mail had your phone number and mailing address makes it even more serious. It's clearly a case of stolen data probably from a call center which is becoming more frequent due to greed of few of the call center workers selling data of the customers to fraudsters.

 

@Theo, I think that mainly concerns sites that are "offer based", like you avail of the offer and you get freebies or rewards, like Superpay.me for example, since it's advertisement based. I don't think freelance sites share our emails, only those that are commercially related will do that. My Gmail accounts don't get spam mail unless I use them to sign up to some sites, so at least Gmail isn't selling our info.. Yet.

 

Thank you for this warning. Quite timely, because i also received a similar email. The good thing is that, my email caught it as spam. Thus i did not take very keen interest on it. It's a very tough world we are living in now. All the major crimes in the world are cyber crimes. Since everything is going digital.

I was amazed by my brother yesterday, i learned that he can trick Captcha into registering several accounts in a certain website. That simply means that the digital world has loopholes that opportunity will take advantage of. The email scam has been there for a while now. But as the technology advances so does the hackers.

You should always invest in the state of the art security system. Both for physical access to you computer, and the virtual access to data. Both are prone to hackers.