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Scam, urgent!
- Thread starter Peter Holmes
- Start date
Hi Folks, yes this is the real E.Norman Walker. I just got back from Spain at 2330 last night and have not seen any of my emails, phone messages etc for the last two weeks. No I was not anywhere more exotic than Spain, was not mugged or whatever and for all those who tried to phone me etc to check that I was Ok thank you very much. For the rest then I am very sorry that you were plagued by this. What I do not understand is where these spawns of satan get the details from. Almost the only people who know me as Edward are the staff at the local hospital who assume that I use my first name. As I have about 600 contacts in my email listings I imagine that there has been a lot of wasted time. Although I have not actually seen this email I am told that the email address from which it was sent is not correct but clearly I cannot correct it here in case these piles of poo ever realise their mistake. Anyway, thanks for the concern.
A little more feedback on this in case any of you end up with the same problem. As the user of the email address which was hacked it turns out that the situation is much worse that it appears at first. Not only had many people on my contacts list been inconvenienced but it also turns out that the whole of my contacts list had been deleted (approximately 600 email addresses) and all emails since the first of June were lost. The email which these rat bags used was not mine but the settings in my account had all been changed so that emails out or in were not going where I, or others, thought. The situation then gets even worse. If one goes to Google and types in ‘BT Yahoo helpline telephone number’ or anything like that then one gets a whole series of possibilities which appear to be BT’s official help line. It is only about twenty minutes into the online conversation, with the apparently helpful person controlling ones computer remotely, that one starts to get suspicious about some of the questions being asked. After about half an hour you are informed that a charge of £149.99 +VAT will be made and that in addition further security software will be installed at an additional cost of £99.99+VAT. When asked what this additional software was (which would never need to be upgrade or paid for again) it turns out to be the Windows security suite which comes free with every copy of Windows. One is then asked to leave the computer for one to two hours while they sort out the problem. At this stage I disconnected the whole thing as clearly this was yet another scam, or possibly even part of the same one. Further attempts to find the correct BT telephone number proved useless on line as one continually ends up at a BT site which deals with setting up new accounts, problems with one’s line etc. In the end the only way to get the correct number was through the help number in the front of the local telephone directory. Once there then the lady in Delhi could not have been more helpful or competent. After two days it has now proven possible to recover the whole of the contacts list but the last two weeks of email have all been lost so if any of you have tried to email me in that time then please try again.
There is some information in this which might be relevant to us all. I had left the UK on the 30[SUP]th[/SUP] of May for two weeks and yet the break down in my email system did not occur until the first of June, or later, at which time both my computers had been shut down and off line for several days. Who knew this and who would think of me as Edward? The airline booking system or the Spanish car hire company. I know that Dave Johnston was also hacked in this way a few years ago and also I think Roger Lord. Were either of you out of the country at the time and if so what airline had you booked on? I was on Easyjet. The scam merchants who tried to cheat me over the phone help line had strongly Asiatic accents and possibly hatched out of the same pile of excrement as the perpetrators of the original scam. Feedback might get us somewhere but in any case the rest of you need to be aware of how much trouble something like this can do to your email system.
There is some information in this which might be relevant to us all. I had left the UK on the 30[SUP]th[/SUP] of May for two weeks and yet the break down in my email system did not occur until the first of June, or later, at which time both my computers had been shut down and off line for several days. Who knew this and who would think of me as Edward? The airline booking system or the Spanish car hire company. I know that Dave Johnston was also hacked in this way a few years ago and also I think Roger Lord. Were either of you out of the country at the time and if so what airline had you booked on? I was on Easyjet. The scam merchants who tried to cheat me over the phone help line had strongly Asiatic accents and possibly hatched out of the same pile of excrement as the perpetrators of the original scam. Feedback might get us somewhere but in any case the rest of you need to be aware of how much trouble something like this can do to your email system.
As far as I can see BT use Yahoo for their web mail provider not only does this mean that since yahoo is US owned the US security (and whoever they pass it onto) has access to your mail. but Yahoo has been compromised frequently in the last month or so (the two I have knowlege of I tracked as far as Poland) I guess they have a password buster trolling down every english word in the books.
Why BT cannot source their own e-mail system just shows what a low priority they place on their customers and helping them what a pale shell of what GPO telephones once were, if they used just a fraction of the money they spend on their idiotic 118 adverts (in the age of the internet what is all that on about?) on customer sevice they might stem the rupture of customers to other providers
Why BT cannot source their own e-mail system just shows what a low priority they place on their customers and helping them what a pale shell of what GPO telephones once were, if they used just a fraction of the money they spend on their idiotic 118 adverts (in the age of the internet what is all that on about?) on customer sevice they might stem the rupture of customers to other providers
I have received the "Stranded Traveler" email scam from several Vincent owners. Just like calling Norman "Edward", they usually make some mistake. I never sign off the computer without clearing all of the temporary files including the local password files. I mentioned this to another Vincent owner. He tried it and when asked him how it was going he said he stopped doing it because he had to type in his passwords when he went on his favorite sites. I told him that was the point. If his computer is storing his password then anyone can get access to it. So, if you check the "remember me" box you are exposing your password because it is stored in a commonly known file in your computer. I suspect Norman got an email with instructions to deliver the contents of that file to the bad guys. Once they had his password, they no longer needed his computer, they had access through the website.
I know very little about computers, but I do know that even if I check the "remember me" box, my temporary files are cleared before I sign off and no site has ever remembered me after the cleaning. It is a small inconvenience, but in most cases, we are the weakest link in the chain.
David
I know very little about computers, but I do know that even if I check the "remember me" box, my temporary files are cleared before I sign off and no site has ever remembered me after the cleaning. It is a small inconvenience, but in most cases, we are the weakest link in the chain.
David
"A small inconvenience." Have to think about that one for a while. I'm up to 60+ passwords. My posts to various fora are determined by which password I can remember. Beats the hell out of the alternative though.
Clear your cache, cause its your cash they're after.
Clear your cache, cause its your cash they're after.
I've just had another of these scam emails from 'Edward Walker'. My email system suggests to let the real E N Walker know in some way other than email. Please could someone who knows him better than I phone him to let him know that his account is compromised? Sending him a message through this forum will result in your message being sent to the hackers controlling his compromised account, so is not a good idea.
With regards to the problems with remembering passwords, some IT officers recommend a method known as 'salting', whereby one uses a standard memorable password for every site, but with the addition of a modular extra section (the salt) that is different but memorable for every site. For example your standard, base password could be 'mypassword', for the VOC forum 'mypassword.voc', for the Britbike forum 'mypassword.britbike' etc. Therefore even if a hacker guesses one of your passwords, they are unlikely to crack them all. Combined with deleting your cache each day this may add some security to browsing, without having to remember or even worse store all your passwords as a text file somewhere on your computer.
best wishes,
gwild
With regards to the problems with remembering passwords, some IT officers recommend a method known as 'salting', whereby one uses a standard memorable password for every site, but with the addition of a modular extra section (the salt) that is different but memorable for every site. For example your standard, base password could be 'mypassword', for the VOC forum 'mypassword.voc', for the Britbike forum 'mypassword.britbike' etc. Therefore even if a hacker guesses one of your passwords, they are unlikely to crack them all. Combined with deleting your cache each day this may add some security to browsing, without having to remember or even worse store all your passwords as a text file somewhere on your computer.
best wishes,
gwild
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