ChatterBank5 mins ago
Scams
18 Answers
There are scams - and then there are scams!
I've just been invoiced for four days toilet hire at £15 + VAT. I thought the idea of a scam was to try and make them believable!
At least this one won't get me bogged down, wondering if it was genuine!
I've just been invoiced for four days toilet hire at £15 + VAT. I thought the idea of a scam was to try and make them believable!
At least this one won't get me bogged down, wondering if it was genuine!
Answers
Who sent it, do you have anything to go on?
10:16 Wed 03rd Feb 2016
Wiltsman:
I hope that invoice didn't arrive as an attachment. If it did, it's real purpose might not have been to get you to hand over money but to dump malware onto your computer (which can happen simply through opening an attachment).
If you did open an attachment, run a full scan with both your anti-virus program and with Malwarebytes. Also consider using System Restore to take your computer's registry back to before you opened that potentially dodgy attachment.
I hope that invoice didn't arrive as an attachment. If it did, it's real purpose might not have been to get you to hand over money but to dump malware onto your computer (which can happen simply through opening an attachment).
If you did open an attachment, run a full scan with both your anti-virus program and with Malwarebytes. Also consider using System Restore to take your computer's registry back to before you opened that potentially dodgy attachment.
I got a good one the other week. If you remember my saga - my computer died, I eventually got a new laptop (sales)and when I finally got connected there were all sorts of problems with it so I had to take it back. There was no other computer immediately available so I went home computerless.
NEXT MORNING I had a phone call from an Asian gentleman who assured me that he was calling from Microsoft and that I had downloaded a devastating virus onto my computer. He continued in this vein, blinding me with technology, against my feeble protests. When I eventually got a word in and told him I didn't actually have a computer at the moment, there was a short silence and 'Bye!
He'd probably have gone on to ask for a payment to download a programme to sort it out. It was nice to stymie him. :)
NEXT MORNING I had a phone call from an Asian gentleman who assured me that he was calling from Microsoft and that I had downloaded a devastating virus onto my computer. He continued in this vein, blinding me with technology, against my feeble protests. When I eventually got a word in and told him I didn't actually have a computer at the moment, there was a short silence and 'Bye!
He'd probably have gone on to ask for a payment to download a programme to sort it out. It was nice to stymie him. :)
Thank you for your replies. Just to reassure you, I never open an attachment if I don't know where it came from. The email in question has been deleted from my laptop. If I remember correctly, I was actually invited to open a pdf, which obviously I declined to do.
I do wonder why this particular scammer decided an invoice for toilet hire was a great way to make money.
I don't think there is anybody who would automatically pay such an invoice - who would forget that they hadn't ordered an outside loo?
I do wonder why this particular scammer decided an invoice for toilet hire was a great way to make money.
I don't think there is anybody who would automatically pay such an invoice - who would forget that they hadn't ordered an outside loo?