Scammers' skills are slipping...

Half Fast

Half Fast

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Half Fast
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Just got a phishing email in a poor attempt at spoofing Truist bank. Now first of all, I don't have a Truist account, and second the email address is bogus, but check this out:

1772743125010.png​

Apparently these "failed sign-in attempts" occurred 7 hours in the future.
 
These days scammers don't need much but for you to open the email. The email address would be the dead giveaway and would have never opened it. I was reading about spyware being able to get on devices merely by open emails now.

At same time, the time tells you where the scammer lives (time zone).
 
Half Fast said:
Just got a phishing email in a poor attempt at spoofing Truist bank. Now first of all, I don't have a Truist account, and second the email address is bogus, but check this out:


Apparently these "failed sign-in attempts" occurred 7 hours in the future.
Click to expand...
They were probably from places such as Greece, Egypt or Eastern Europe.
 
DeltaCharlie172 said:
These days scammers don't need much but for you to open the email. The email address would be the dead giveaway and would have never opened it. I was reading about spyware being able to get on devices merely by open emails now.

At same time, the time tells you where the scammer lives (time zone).
Click to expand...

Yep. I didn't open it. The screenshot is from the preview pane.
 
Best one I got was one informing me my iCloud was full and all my photos would be deleted unless I paid using this convenient web portal link to a janky ass domain.
And it was signed "Best Hopes In This Urgent Matter, Wilbur Shlomo Mohammed Zhang". A real and upstanding Apple employee, no doubt.

The reasons I didn't comply with the request were many.

But what got me the most was the name. When you're trying to fly under the radar and look like another tech company reminder email, how on gods green earth did you arrive at that name to dupe people?
 
Very plausible sender address too. o_O

I read somewhere that they make these obvious errors to pre-screen for the gullible, but I'm not so sure. I think they just suck at their criminal craft.
 
DeltaCharlie172 said:
These days scammers don't need much but for you to open the email. The email address would be the dead giveaway and would have never opened it. I was reading about spyware being able to get on devices merely by open emails now.

At same time, the time tells you where the scammer lives (time zone).
Click to expand...
Not just these days. This started in the early 2000's. Then, lots of malware/worms were auto-opened by Outlook and other email clients before the world knew better (e.g. ILOVEYOU virus).

Now, most clients won't load anything in an email (images, javascript, etc.) unless you tell it to.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
.
And it was signed "Best Hopes In This Urgent Matter, Wilbur Shlomo Mohammed Zhang". A real and upstanding Apple employee, no doubt.
.
But what got me the most was the name. When you're trying to fly under the radar and look like another tech company reminder email, how on gods green earth did you arrive at that name to dupe people?
Click to expand...
Perhaps it was something like this: (stolen from BeechTalk).
I was on a flight when a very confident beautiful woman sat down beside me. Trying to make small talk, I asked whether she was traveling for work or for fun.

She smiled and said she was actually speaking at a convention about relationships and intimacy. Her job, she explained, was to challenge common myths. She joked that people often claim Native Americans are the most well-built, Mexicans are the most passionate lovers, and Southern country boys have the greatest stamina.

Mid-sentence, she suddenly looked embarrassed and said, “Oh my goodness, here I am talking away and I don’t even know your name.”

I grinned and replied, “Name’s Tonto Gonzales… but my friends call me Bubba.”
Click to expand...
 
The percentage of people who open the email and click on the link is high for even poorly written spam emails.

The techniques they're using now are often focused on getting past the mfa systems that are in place, and they're getting better at that. They'll redirect someone to a man in the middle attack on the mfa, simulating an actual login on the real site, and collecting your token or code along the way.
 
Take a gander at Scammer Payback on the 'tube. If you're not already well-versed in internet/phone scam techniques you will be in short order. The man and his team do great work.

I received an email a few days ago urgently informing me that my Disney account had been signed into in Belgium somewhere. Nowadays, the mouse has his fingers in everything so I took a closer look. Yeah...bogus email. I was actually impressed on how legitimate they made that one look, though. Every once in a while you get a winner.
 
I just received the request to update the cloud for my pictures. Along with two requests from the banks. Gets frustrating dealing with the scammers and AI doesn’t help.
 
I just keep getting the iphone and McAffee invoices. But they're always kind to include the "if you didn't order this, please click here" link... :rolleyes:
 
Dana said:
I just keep getting the iphone and McAffee invoices. But they're always kind to include the "if you didn't order this, please click here" link... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
For someone who has not spent a minute in a BestBuy in 15 years, I get a lot of Geek Squad invoices.
 
At work I get a lot of emails supposedly from my boss telling me to pay an invoice. The filter catches most of them but a few get through.
 
My late wife, who passed in 2014, keeps getting invoices from Microsoft and others addressed to my email. The Spam filter has filtered them out 100%.
 
These keep getting dumber.

I just received a text supposedly from the state DMV warning me to "Address your traffic citation by 3/18/26 to avoid severe penalties." Naturally, it gives me a link to click, but it ends in ".org" instead of ".gov" and has some other bogus-appearing stuff. And of course I haven't received any traffic tickets for a long time. And if I had, that still wouldn't mean the DMV would have my cell number.

But the really dumb part is that the text came from a phone number starting with area code 260. That's in Indiana! If you were trying to spoof a text from the FL DMV, wouldn't you use a Florida area code?

At least they're amusing.
 
Half Fast said:
These keep getting dumber.

I just received a text supposedly from the state DMV warning me to "Address your traffic citation by 3/18/26 to avoid severe penalties." Naturally, it gives me a link to click, but it ends in ".org" instead of ".gov" and has some other bogus-appearing stuff. And of course I haven't received any traffic tickets for a long time. And if I had, that still wouldn't mean the DMV would have my cell number.

But the really dumb part is that the text came from a phone number starting with area code 260. That's in Indiana! If you were trying to spoof a text from the FL DMV, wouldn't you use a Florida area code?

At least they're amusing.
Click to expand...
And yet people fall for that **** every day.
 
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