Best of Salineville Awards
I received this from the US. As with most things like this, I recognise they are spam and completely worthless.
In recognition of your achievement, a 2009 Best of Salineville Award has been designed for display at your place of business. You may arrange to have your award sent directly to James Miller by following the simple steps on the 2009 Best of Salineville Award order form.
Each year, the US Commerce Association (USCA) identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.
Also, a copy of the press release publicizing the selection of James Miller has been posted on our website. The USCA hereby grants James Miller a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, distribute, and display this press release in any media formats and through any media channels.
An Award Code has been assigned to your company that can be used on our website for quick access to your award information and press release.
Your Award Code is: 8A3F-WX2B
Sincerely,
Ashley Carter
Selection Committee Chair
US Commerce Association
So I searched for Ashley Carter and the US Commerce Association. It is just a rather dubious vanity award and as I thought completely worthless.
Communicate with these people at your peril.
Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910721)
This is a scam.
What gives it away is that Outlook and Outlook Express are separate programs, so the update would not be for both of them. The version of the program is also not given. Click here, to see what Sophos, a respected computer security company says.
Basically, it installs a phishing program on your computer to get your banking details and other private information.
Don’t click the link or install it!
Loan Fraud
I assume that these two e-mails I received this morning are up to no good.
This one is from Homesteel Loan Management.
This is HOMESTEEEL LOAN MANAGEMENT, a private loan lender.We provide funding for companies and individuals that need funding. We work domestic as well as international companies. Our funding sources specialize in creative solutions to meet your needs for expansion, growth etc.
Our company do grant loans to individuals and companies as the loan grant varies from $5 thousand to $5 million Dollars with an interest rate of just 2.5 %.Borrower’s Information Needed
Full Names:…………………………………………
Country:……………………………………………
Phone Number:……………………………………..
Loan Amount Needed:…………………………….
Loan Term Duration:……………………………….Contact us today with the above information at honorablekalebcole1@gmail.com,mrkalebcole@sifymail.com
Company Name:HOMESTEEEL LOAN MANAGEMENT.
Registration Number: EA-ASL/941OYI/02/LN-UK
Telephone: +44-701-112-8005
Fax: +44 91-791-52-20Regards,
HOMESTEEEL LOAN MANAGEMENT
homesteelmanagement@gmail.com
And this one is from Eagle Loan Management.
This is Eagle Loan Management, a private loan lender.We provide funding for companies and individuals that need funding. We work domestic as well as international companies. Our funding sources specialize in creative solutions to meet your needs for expansion, growth etc.
Our company do grant loans to individuals and companies as the loan grant varies from $5 thousand to $5 million Dollars with an interest rate of just 2.5%.Borrower’s Information Needed
Full Names:…………………………………………
Country:……………………………………………
Phone Number:……………………………………..
Loan Amount Needed:…………………………….
Loan Term Duration:……………………………….Contact us today with the above information at eagleinvestment@sifymail.com
Company Name:EAGLE LOAN MANAGEMENT.
Registration Number: EA-ASL/941OYI/02/LN-UK
Telephone: +44-701-112-8005
Fax: +44 91-791-52-20Regards,
EAGLE LOAN MANAGEMENT
eagleloan.2009@gmail.com
Note that the registration, telephone and fax numbers are all the same.
Obviously, both of these e-mails are the same fraud. I suspect, that you will pay a lot of up-front fees and never see any money.
There is also the possibility that just phoning the numbers will be very expensive. In fact it is a good idea never to phone any UK number beginning with 7, unless you know who it belongs to! Many are mobiles, but some of them are linked to very expensive personal numbers.
Don’t whatever you do have anything to do with these crooks!
Illegal Uploading
The government makes a lot of fuss about the illegal downloading of films, television programs and music. But I suspect more of us are affected by illegal uploading, or the various spam messages we get all the time.
Here’s one I got this morning.
From:Lady Sylvia Ströher
23-16 street, Berlin,Germany.
I am Lady Sylvia Ströher suffering from cancerous ailment.
I am married to Lord Stroher,a German shipping tycoon notable for his great wealth,influential extended family,and charitable activities all his life before his death.Our life together as man and wife lasted for three decades without child.My husband died after a protracted illness in August 22,2007.My husband and I made a vow to uplift the down-trodden and the less-privileged individuals as he had passion for persons who can not help themselves due to physical disability or financial predicament.I can adduce this to the fact that he needed a Child from this relationship,which never came.
When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of 20.000.000.00 (Twenty Million Great Britain Pounds Sterling) which were derived from his vast estates and investment in capital market with his bank in United Kingdom and named me as the beneficiary of this trust fund.
Presently,this money is still with the Bank.
Recently, my Doctor told me that I have limited days to live due to the cancerous problems I am suffering from.Though what bothers me most is the stroke that I have in addition to the cancer.
With this hard reality that has befallen my family,and me I have decided to donate this fund to you and want you to use this gift which comes from my husbands effort to fund the upkeep of widows, widowers,orphans,destitute, the down- trodden, physically challenged children,barren-women and persons who prove to be genuinely handicapped financially.
It is often said that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because Ido not have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are bourgeois and very wealthy persons and I do not want my husband’s hard earned money to be misused or invested into ill perceived ventures.I do not want a situation where this money will be used in a worldly manner, hence the reason for taking this bold decision.I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going.I do not need any telephone communication in this regard due to my deteriorating health and because of the presence of my husbands relatives around me as i am currently bed ridden in the Family house here in 23-16 street, Berlin,Germany.
and do not receive any visitors unless approved by Huwer Stroher who is the immediate younger brother to my late husband.I do not want them to know about this development in order to safeguard this bequest.I will also authorise my Private Attorney in the UK whom i communicate with via emails all the time,to issue a Letter of Authority that will empower you as the new beneficiary of this fund, he would also endorse my WILL where i will name you as the beneficiary of the 20.000.000.Million GBP.You can contact my personal Lawyer through his email address only on this email below please:
Barrister Jones Shealy
Email: shealyjon@gmail.com
Tell him that I have WILLED the said sum to you and the reason for doing this is best known to me.My happiness is that I lived a life worthy of emulation. Please always be kindhearted all through your life.Please assure me that you will act just as I have stated herein.
Your’s Sincerely
Lady Sylvia Ströher
We all know that it’s a scam and you shouldn’t reply to it. But some people must do as these people wouldn’t keep sending the junk.
But what are the authorities doing about it. At best little and most probably nothing.
But as a programmer, who likes to think he knows the Internet better than his hand, there must be simple solution.
For instance, the technology is such that if we all forwarded this junk to a special e-mail address, then the various e-mails could be analysed and if say a hundred copies were found, then any e-mail addresses used would be immediately shut down. A lot of this could be automated and if done on a world-wide basis, it would make it much more difficult for these swindlers to operate.
Or we could use a guerrilla approach.
You register an anonymous e-mail address at something like Hotmail, GMail or Yahoo and then send the embedded e-mail addresses in the fraud a nice large picture file of say a puppy, kitten or something else pleasant as an attachment. If enough of us did that, then these fraudsters would quickly get overloaded and hopefully the innocent wouldn’t get sucked in. They would obviously target your anonymous address, but when it gets unusable, you just abandon it.
After all these anonymous e-mail address companies, are one of the reasons we get so much junk. If they did a few more checks when an account was opened, the fraudsters perhaps would be deterred.
Credit Card Fraud – After Death
As a complete afterthought to the previous post and not directly related, when my wfe died, I couldn’t find one of her credit cards and ended up at the security department of a major credit card company. As it happened, she had probably cancelled the card as we could find no trace.
But the guy I spoke to, gave me the fact that a lot of credit card fraud, involves creating new cards for people who have just died. The criminals would often use the notices in papers and then quickly create an ID. Whether it would work now I don’t know. But beware!
Credit Card Security – A Picture?
On Tuesday, I wrote about another credit card scam.
It strikes me that the Internet has moved on with things like Twitter, Facebook and all of the other social media. But institutions like banks seem to be very much stuck in the last century when it comes to embracing, not the social media, but the technology that drives it.
For instance, go into your average shop, supermarket or garage, the till is unlikely to be something archaic, but a computer with a screen, masquerading as a sophisticated money-taking terminal. So when I put my credit card in the card reader, this computer can do, and I hope it does, a lot more than just check the pin code.
As an example, we should be able to upload other data to our card account. For instance, suppose I uploaded the registration of my vehicles to the bank. Then in a garage, I could choose that these were displayed to the operator, so that if I was not in a named vehicle, he could check the card further. I think that only once in the last five years, have I filled up with fuel, without knowing the vehicle number. And that was when I collected a new horse box from Newbury.
But other things could be done. Why can’t I upload a picture to my credit card company, that is then used on my card? I’d probably put one of the Lotus. So if my card was cloned and suspicions raised, then it would be easy to check that it wasn’t the correct card. Perhaps, a description but not the picture could be downloaded to the terminal. After all if this said “yellow Lotus Elan” and it was a plain red card, this should ring a few bells.
But we could also upload a personal photo, that we gave permission to be downloaded when we used our card. It would probably only mean that if a few percent of cards had a picture on them, then criminals would be wary of using all cards in shops and garages. I suppose they could check that a card was picture enabled, but that would mean that they would have to do a purchase in a dodgy retailer, thus leaving a trail.
I also wonder too, why you can’t have SMS messages enabled on your card or bank balance. Say once a day, you get a balance and you are informed of every transaction over a preset limit. I can look all this up on the Internet, but it would not be difficult terchnology to impliment and I’d pay a few pence for the messages.
This are only a few of my thoughts.
But we have to ask, why banks and credit card companies are not thinking much more like the general population.
After all, according to many sources, bank and credit card fraud is going to get much worse. I also don’t believe that they can beat it on their own and they need all the help they can get. And especially from those with most to lose; their customers.
Text Message Accident Scam
A few minutes ago I got a text on my mobile from +447849031791 which said.
You may be entitled to 6000 pounds compensation for the Accident you had. To claim for free reply with YES to this msg. To opt out text stop. HBXA
As I haven’t had an accident, it’s either a cyber ambulance chaser or a scam. Take your pick!
I will not reply.
I did search the Internet with Google and found a useful site called WhoCallsMe. They had several copies of the same message registered on their site.
Note – I put quotes around “You may be entitled to 6000 pounds compensation for the Accident you had” to do the search.
This isn’t the first time I’ve come across these sort of people. A few months ago to get one off the phone, I had to use the F-word many times and put the phone down on him at least six times.
The Anonymous Widower 