New "Your Account is Locked" SMS Text Message Scam Phishing for Amazon, Venmo, and More
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New “Your Account is Locked” SMS Scam Text Messages Phishing for Amazon, Netflix, Venmo, and More

A huge batch of scam text messages with links going to onlinehome.us have been going out, phishing for your Amazon, Netflix, Venmo, and other credentials. Many of them appear to include the strings “membershpspprt” or “mailspprtaccnt” in the ‘from’ field, suggesting that they are all part of a bot effort using the same script or scripts.

eBay Order Phishing Scam with eBay Phishing Email Example
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eBay Order Phishing Scam 2022 (with eBay Phishing Email Example)

Below is the newest eBay phishing email example, sent out and received on June 21, 2022. Don’t fall for these sorts of eBay scams! If you receive an email from eBay (or anywhere) about an order that you know you didn’t place, delete it! Now of course, the scammers know that you know that you didn’t place the order; what they are counting on is you panicking and thinking that someone else has placed an order in your name, using your credit card information. And they are counting on you clicking the link to “the order” so you can tell eBay that there must be some mistake. Of course, it’s not really eBay to which that link leads: you’ve fallen right into their trap.

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Don’t Click On or Open Screenshot[.]photos Links!

If out of the blue you get a message with a link to screenshot.photos in it, don’t click on it! It is a scam trying to get you to click on the link.

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Anatomy of a Craigslist Rental Scam – How to Detect Rental Scams on Craigslist

By now, in 2018, most people know that rental scams on Craigslist abound. But how to tell a Craigslist rental scam is not as well known. Below is an example of a Craigslist rental scam. The scammer calls himself Bob Osell, claims to be renting the house located at 2237 Kay St. in Longmont, Colorado, and to be reachable at (760)2378225.

steve mccoy stevecoy gmail confirmation email scam scammer
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Scammers Using Confirmation Emails to Get to Targets

Here is a twist on the usual 419 advance-fee scams: the scammer signs up for something such as a newsletter, and then replies to the confirmation email with their scam. We know this, because we were hit with just such a scam from “Steve McCoy”, using the email address stevecoy61@gmail.com.

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About All Those She’s Gone Ads on Facebook

If you are on Facebook you can’t avoid them. The “She’s gone” ads, suggesting that celebrities like Sally Fields, Betty White, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Susan Sarandon, and Kris Jenner, have died (they haven’t), with the weird domain names, are everywhere. Click on them, and each and every one of them leads not to news that they have died (surprise, surprise) but a website selling Beauty and Truth (oh, the irony) brand youth serum.

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New Online Dating Scam – I’m Contacting You for a Friend

We have written about Internet dating scams before, but this online dating scam is new – or at least coming around again. Our example of this Internet dating scam involves a “woman”, WonderfulHumma from Las Vegas, who is shilling for her friend “Talented Roy” (talentedroy60@aol.com). “Good Morning Friend,” the scam beings, “This may sound cliche or weird.” And indeed it does…if an email on an Internet dating site sounds weird, it probably is. Stay away.

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The Trick of the “1 Trick of a Tiny Belly” Ads is that They are Part of a Massive Scam, say Feds

The only way that you could have missed the “1 trick of a tiny belly” or “One tip to a tiny belly” ads that have been everywhere – absolutely everywhere – on the Internet would be if you hadn’t been on the Internet yourself. Well it turns out that those “1 tip” ads, some of which tout “Cut down a bit of your belly everyday by following this 1 weird old tip”, are part of a massive network of scams which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has uncovered.

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Did You Get a Message That Your Friend was Mugged and Needs Money? It’s a Scam!

There is a horrific scam going around that uses just about every trick in the book – and effectively at that – to get you to send the scammers some money. It uses social engineering, urgency, Facebook hacking, and email hacking, and looks so genuine that we have no doubt that many have fallen for it. It comes from your friend’s actual account, and starts out by saying “This message may be coming to you as a surprise..” It then goes on to say that “we were mugged” and that the muggers stole “all our cash, credit cards and cellphone but thank God we still have our lives”, and then begs “I need you to help me out with a loan to settle our bills here…” It sounds so real – and after all it comes right from your friend’s account – how can you refuse? But refuse you must, because it is a scam.

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Newest Nigerian Internet Scam: Selling Your House Out from Under You

Nigerian scammers have taken Internet scams to a new high (or low): selling your house, without your knowledge, and having the proceeds go to them. All done remotely, primarily via the Internet, with a little fax and phone thrown in. Of course, now that Nigerian scammers have pulled this off successfully (yes, successfully – just ask Roger Mildenhall about the Perth, Australia house that used to be his), we’re sure that other scammers around the world will be trying it.

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New Version of 419 Scam Aimed at Lawyers

This is very interesting – an advance fee fraud scam aimed specifically at lawyers. In this twist on the classic Nigerian 419 advanced free scam, instead of the scammer being the “widow of a deposed dictator”, the supposed damsel in distress is a woman whose “divorce was finalized here in Japan”, and she “wants to retain your professional service.”

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An Example of a Current Craigslist Scam

Online scams are nothing new, and Craigslist (named after founder Craig Newmark, hence Craig’s list) has always had its fair share. Perhaps the most insidious of the Craigslist scams are those which appear to be legitimate replies to Craigs list postings – after all, while many consumers are wary of what they read online, most can’t imagine that a scammer would take the time to personally reply to them! In this particular scam, the email comes from twanachausse16@aim.com on behalf of TLP Research.

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Phishers Turn to SMS with Text Message Phishing

Not content with tricking victims into giving up private identity information via email, phishers are increasingly turning to text messaging to scam account numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, and more from their targets.

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Email Death Threat: The Hitman Email Scam Makes a Comeback

If you receive a death threat email, you’re in good company. The so-called “Hitman email” scam has made a comeback. Around since at least 2006, the content of the death threat email has evolved some, but the general gist of it remainds the same: the Hitman email claims that someone wants you dead, that the Hitman email sender has been hired to kill you, and that if you come up with a sufficient amount of money, they will spare your life.