WARNING Gumtree Scammers

[Ozzie]

Marvin says “forewarned is forearmed”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-21/ ... /102245638

I am basically afraid these days of doing any financial transaction over $10 other than over the counter.

[Andrew]

Thanks ozzie good read. That's scary stuff, modern day international bank robbers. No more balaklavas and guns. Wonder if our cops even have half a clue how to catch them.(you never read of any arrests)

I've shared this story to others. its amazing how easily the robbers got a 6 figure sum (once they have the persons bank data) thinking optus and medibank hacks / massive personal data breaches. (See there's the first class action in Aust legal history against the optus customers data breach).

Yes, local buying is better for boat bits etc. Pay small cash directly to local 2nd hand net sellers. and/or go to a reputable businesses for discount sales.

[Ozzie]

Thanks Andrew. I also send these to friends and relatives. The only thing the average punter can do to help fight these low lifes is spread the word. I’d urge anyone reading this to forward the link on if you can. The more people who know the less victims.

[Ozzie]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-13/ ... /102448796

Most important thing here’s to check the URL of any site you’re dealing with …look for https at the start. This site has it. This means it is a secure connection as per the article and your bank information is not able to be harvested by crooks. Hope their through hulls all spring a leak

Also beware of another one I’m getting . Text messages from bogus government sites.

[Geoff]

Be careful of putting too much trust in https://

That prefix means it is a secure connection. It does not mean it’s a safe website. It can still mean a secure connection to a fraudulent website.

Very important to check the URL in its entirety. What the scammers do is buy a domain name that might only have one letter or a number different from a legitimate website.

They don’t even have to buy a trust certificate. They are free these days.

So they could buy the domain name commomwealth bank.com

See the misspelling?

You can then receive an email with a link to commonwealthbank.com, spelt correctly in the email. The link takes you to the misspelt website.

Website can have all sorts of malware on it, including software to harvest any details you input.

[Ozzie]

Thanks Geoff. Hadn’t thought of that. Its getting more difficult to safely navigate anything on the web. We could go back to writing cheques but I heard they are trying to phase out cheques.

[Ozzie]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -residents

I learn something new every day.

[Ozzie]

Really wish I didn’t have to report this s++t but …
We posted some items for an elderly friend today on my wife’s fb account on fb marketplace . I hate fb but she keeps an account to connect with our youngest daughter. Marketplace seems to have taken over from Gumtree in many respects, just as fb groups have supplanted forums as a way for groups of hobby enthusiasts to connect,

It is also a fertile playground for scummers (spelling correct). We had a contact from a woman in fairly quick time after the listing went in (always sus on gumtree) She asked reasonable questions about the goods which were marked very low in accordance with my friends instructions. Then quickly agreed to take everything at a job lot. She could not pickup till later in the week after work but would pay full price now on PayPal or the phone payment thingo I don’t use. Ok, sounds fair, so, my PayPal account is softskull@thickhead.com etc.

Sometime later we get another message…. Ok I’ve paid the amount to softskull@thickhead.com, you should have an email from PayPal confirming the amount by now. I check …nuh nothing. Go to pp no deposits this month. We confirm this with Mrs oldmate. She replies with “check your junk mail “. Well this is fair enough as it’s not unusual for serious emails to finish up in junk and I’ve had this warning before from legitimate sources.

We get an official looking email from PayPal security saying a payment (correct amount) has been received from a business account, but it exceeds our daily limit because we don’t have a business account So could we please switch over on this link to change to a business account, as this amount cannot be reversed or refunded.

At first I was momentarily annoyed as I thought “why the truck didn’t they just pay cash when collecting the stuff”. Then, the penny dropped, that I’d given them my email which is the one I use as my PayPal name. They had just cloned a pp email format and tried to direct us to their phishing link. The email repeats minutes later.

As usual with this stuff I wanted to rule out blowing off a genuine buyer, so I attempted to use the (real) on-site PayPal chat bot to check out the validity of the request. The AI chat bot didn’t seem to dig the text I’d forwarded from the email. It kept asking what brand of herbal tea my maiden aunt prefers. I gave that up and decided to ring the hotline and converse with a human. I got a security code to input (good) and number to ring. Expecting a two hour symphony of elevator music, I was pleasantly surprised to get a nice lady within two minutes, who confirmed no deposit had been made, and no emails had been sent from PayPal. She asked could I copy the email and sent it to their phishing dept so they could activate their hypersonic death ray and stop further annoyance. Quite satisfying really.

When copying the text it was then I noted that even though the heading of the fake email said “PAYPAL SERVICE “ The address below said “seevice”…note the difference Again the personal nature of the correspondence had gently steered me to thinking I was holding some money that could not be accepted or refunded till I’d done the paperwork. Clever and annoying, as I realised I had not sold my friends stuff, had almost let my guard down and worse wasted an hour dealing with **se wholes.

Anyway, as I’ve said the best way of stopping these people is to spread the word. Forward this to your brethren.

I hope their inflatable PFDs cylinders are full of whipped cream .

Coincidentally this was on SBS news site today…I only scored 8 out of 10. Old age is kicking in

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/can ... /sjsdyn8ja

Apologies to anyone who read this post last night. It contained the World’s longest sentences and has since been edited.

[Ozzie]

Marvin, the paranoid android wishes you a happy new year

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the ... news:na:na

[Ozzie]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-19/ ... ent=safari

Another warning from Auntie ABC this morning. I’ve had a few ads on gummy this month getting rid of projects I know I’ll never finish and it’s interesting how I’m getting lots of enquiries that never go anywhere. This usually follows what appears to be a normal course of communication with sensible questions leading to my supply of address for pickup, then nothing or the occasional lame excuse “the cats eaten my wallet”.
The same thing happens again a week later on another item (different buyer) but this time it’s posted item and they get my PayPal address but suddenly they say it’s not working (see my previous post on PayPal scam).

These people have a Gumtree profile, which is the first thing I check, they’ve been a member for 5 years rather than 5 minutes but no goods for sale or sold. They even have a rating, which may be from themselves using one of their aliases. Quite possibly they are aliases for the same oldmate building up an information profile. If so he’s got first name email/PayPal moniker and address. No passwords but info just the same. I make a point of never using the “save password for auto login on this machine” or similar options or the same password. Using a password every time I log in helps the old brain box remember the bloody thing and may assist in preventing the type of stuff under reference occurring. In short trust nobody. Not even your your mum, it could be oldmate in a wig.

Anyway, usual blurb, spread the word.