A few recent scams that I heard about:

1.  Skype – There is a virus going around that is infecting Skype accounts.  It enables the person that created the virus to keep track of your keystrokes giving them access to your passwords etc.  Once your Skype account is infected it also sends out messages to all of your contacts to do the same thing to them.

2.  E-mailing for Cash – My wife recently received an e-mail from a former co-worker’s e-mail account that said she was traveling with her husband and they had some trouble and lost everything they had and needed $2500 to get home.  Of course, my wife did not believe this since this former co-worker is not the type of person to travel like this and the text of the e-mail didn’t sound like something this person would write.  She sent an e-mail to this person but didn’t reply to the e-mail that she had received.  Sure enough her former co-worker wasn’t traveling and knew nothing about this except that she had received a few similar e-mails asking her about her travel situation.

3.  An elderly friend recently received a call from someone claiming to be their grandchild and said they had gotten into trouble in Mexico and needed $1500 for bail money.  This person became confused and did send the money before they checked with this “grandchild’s” parents to verify the story.  They did get taken and so do many other seniors by this scam.

4.  I have also heard of people setting up a fake Facebook page impersonating someone who has many friends and trying to add the person’s friends to the new account for the purpose of exploiting those friends in the future.  If you get a friend request from someone who is already a friend, contact that person another way to verify if the request came from them.

These bring up an important point about Phishing scams; they send out thousands of e-mails and constantly make phone calls looking for their victims.  Make sure your loved ones are aware of these types of scams and make sure you always check with a known source if you receive an e-mail, phone call or request similar to these.

If you discover a virus like the one above, call Duane's Reliable Computer Services, we can help.

Back to Blog