Tag Archives: phishing

I almost fell for it!

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harris hawk on a fence
A visit by a Harris Hawk.

What did I almost fall for? A phishing scam.

They almost had me. I was on Facebook for the Creative Women of Pinnacle Peak’s page. That’s the charity I volunteer for to help victims of sex trafficking. I’ve written about the group and our focus HERE and HERE.

I’m in charge of communications and publicity for our group. I’m promoting our annual fundraiser on Facebook as well as other places. I logged into FB and saw a notification that our page was going to be taken down due to copyright infringement. It was a message that looked legit from Meta. I panicked.

How could it be that a group of less than 30 women, who have been around for 30 years could violate FB rules? We are helping the community for pete’s sake! They provided a link to file a complaint and have our account reviewed. I clicked on the link.

Up came a box asking for my name, birthdate and password. I filled out my name and birthdate. I didn’t have the password, because I was given access to the page, but didn’t set it up. Then I thought about it. Why would they need that info?

I erased the info and began looking at help pages on FB to find out if this was legit or not. The first notification that our page would be deleted was from a person named Wojtek Brawo. I clicked on this person’s account and there was no info and no posts. Only a few friends. Then I googled the name to find out what country or nationality the person was from. I found this:

Wojtek was a Syrian brown bear adopted by soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps during World War II. As a young cub, his mother was shot by hunters, and he was found in the mountains of Iran by a young boy. The boy then sold him to a group of Polish soldiers who were in the country after being evacuated from the Soviet Union. Wikipedia

I did report this person as a scammer. Then a second notification came under a different name with the same message. I reported that one to Facebook, too.

My husband has been close to falling for phishing scams. He gets texts that a package is arriving but he needs to click to update information. I tell him it’s a scam and tease him about not realizing it’s phishing.

Now I almost fell for one! In defense of myself, the scammers are getting better and better. Be careful and if something doesn’t feel right, don’t click. Don’t provide any personal information online!

What phishing scams have you seen in your inbox, texts or online?

FYI, if you missed my post Friday, please take a look HERE. I posted new hawk photos. I accidentally scheduled it for the wrong day. Corrected my mistake, but it didn’t appear in Reader.

Scams, scams and more scams

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Every single day I get emails like the one above. Plus, I get texts from “UPS” or other delivery services that say they can’t deliver my package. It’s being held until I make a payment.

Of course, I don’t fall for them. But I wonder how many people do? Especially senior citizens, our youth or naive.

When I get the daily half dozen fake PayPal emails I forward them. Here are the instructions from PayPal — the real PayPal.

Phishing email/message

Received a suspicious email, or message or been directed to a fake website? Forward it to phishing@paypal.com and then delete it. We’ll investigate it for you.

Don’t reply, open links, download attachments, or call any listed phone number.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/what-are-common-scams-and-how-do-i-spot-them—help201

My friend in Santa Barbara does lots of errands for her next door neighbor who is older and has sight issues. My friend began to worry when she’d take her mail to the post office and realized she was mailing out dozens of letters each day addressed to sweepstakes. She discovered her elderly neighbor was mailing dollar bills to “win prizes.” She called the neighbor’s daughter who lives in another state and they finally put a stop to it. She would pick up the letters and pretend to mail them, but hold onto them, eventually returning the money.

Another scam I heard about happened during my daughter’s last year in college. One of her friends, who is book smart and was high school valedictorian, got a phone call from the “IRS.” He was instructed to buy Apple gift cards and mail them to an address that was supposedly the government agency.

He emptied out his college account, which had his last semester’s tuition of $1,200 and bought gift cards at the local grocery store. (Yes, he had several scholarships is why his tuition bill was so low.)

The cashier questioned him but he insisted on buying the cards. Then he mailed them.

You can only imagine the teasing he received from his college mates after that! Today this young man is a doctor. Yikes.

What scams do you see in your inbox? Have you heard of any other ones I didn’t mention? Are you worried AI will lead to more scams?