Beware - Halifax scam

[entwisi]

Originally Posted by Doug

But why aren’t these thugs closed down the authorities as soon as they start up.

Because you can run email from any internet connected computer. I could set up a thousand servers a day without any trouble.

The real problem is that most email clients(Outlook being the worst culprit) try to be helpful by hiding the real endpoint of any links in an email. They do this to be 'pretty'. When you hover over a link in an email it should show you the full address. Better stil, only ever use plain text for email. If you bin HTML mail you will never suffer as the full dodgy URL will be displayed for you to see.

Now onto the second 'problem' . Most people(although it is getting less and less every day) use Internet Explorer as their default browser. This has critical bugs that allow the spammers to even hide a real address in the browser bar such that you would believe that you were on the correct site . You click a pretty link in an email and it appears in your browser looking just as you would expect. Non techical people would not be to blame for thinking they were on the correct site and will often put details in.

The moral? Consider using a better(i.e. more secure) browser and only read(and send!) email in plain text.

Ian

[WillowTheWhisp]

Grammatical or spelling mistakes don't always prove that something is fake.

I had a letter (of the postal variety) from my bank a few months ago asking me to contact them: "re regarding your account". When I pointed out to them that "re regarding" didn't actually make sense the reply I got was "oh it's a preprinted letter we just type in what it's about." So if "re" is already there then they should have enough sense not to type in "regarding"! If both are preprinted then I suggest they need to re-program the pre-printed letters.

The bit which frustrated me most was that the dopey looking bank clerk didn't seem to understand what was wrong with the way it was worded. She thought I was objecting to the abbreviation "re"!

As for the phishing scams. There must be many people who fall for them otherwise they wouldn't keep doing it. The more these things are brought to people's attention the better. I haven't had any for a while, but having said that I'll probably get loads now.

[madmal_1]

Originally Posted by park381

Have just received an email from the Halifax or so it would seem, the email asked me to update my online banking details, not having any accounts with the Halifax I phoned their help line, it is not one of ours, please forward the email to our investigations team.
So Accy webbers if you have an account with the Halifax and you get the same email.......delete it. Have attached a scan of the email for information.

none of the banks will not ask for your details on the internet they will write to you so if any one gets on just delet it

[wellbeing]

nice 1 thankyou i will keep my eyes open

[Gayle]

Funny thing, I haven't used my paypal account for a few months and so the emails had stopped. But, I have just had a couple of genuine payments in to my paypal account from ebay and the funny emails have started up again. They're obviously on the watch for activity on paypal accounts.

Another way to tell if they're fake or not - use your mouse and highlight any words at the bottom of the email that are 'invisible' they use them to circumnavigate the junk mail checker thingymijig.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by entwisi

The moral? Consider using a better(i.e. more secure) browser and only read(and send!) email in plain text.

Ian

Cheers for that entwisi, suggestions?

[entwisi]

Firefox from mozilla.org or Opera from opera.com are two that I would suggest. Both offer tabbed browsing, pop up stoppers, skins etc.

Try both, see which your brain is wired for( I find that some programs seem more intuitive than others purely due to how an individual thinks). I personnally like Opera but as most people are aware I also run Linux as opposed to Windows so I don't suffer the problems that a lot of you do.

Ian

[panther]

cheers for that im with the halifax, and just looked at the email u had, it is even the wrong number to dial!! i should know ive rung the right one god knows how many times!! thanks again