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Post by rowanberry on Apr 3, 2019 10:18:25 GMT
Hello, everyone... I know several of you noticed the spammer this morning, and I wanted to let you know they've been banned and the posts have been removed. I just wanted add a note of warning... what they are posting isn't really about American sporting events. The text is computer-generated gibberish meant to look like it's saying something, and there are numerous hyperlinks scattered throughout.
If another one of these postings ever appears, whatever you do DON'T CLICK ON THE LINKS!! I would think they are connected to either a very dodgy site or a virus. There has to be some reason they are doing this, and I would hate for anyone here to have their PC destroyed.
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Post by ianr on Apr 4, 2019 6:41:08 GMT
Good advice rowerberry and a good reason to make sure we all back up the important stuff on our computers. I keep most of my stuff on different hard drives within the computer and all of that on an external hard drive. belt and braces  ian |
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Post by Tringa on Apr 5, 2019 9:36:28 GMT
Missed this one. Backing up is definitely necessary, but I have to admit I am really bad at remembering to do it - thanks for the reminder Ian.
I think we all know -
we haven't won the lottery we did not enter,
there isn't a bloke in Nigeria who has found $1,000,000 which is owed to us, and
never, ever, open a link in an email from an unknown source.
Unfortunately more sophisticated scammers send emails that, superficially, look authentic. When I get one of these I always check independently - phone or email the supposed company.
However, sometimes the emails are so poorly constructed that I can't imagine anyone being fooled. A few weeks ago I had an email allegedly from PayPal where the only text was -
"Notice Information your recent transaction was update, because your account has been limited until we here from you." !!
Let's be careful out there.
Dave
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Post by NellyDee on Apr 5, 2019 14:49:36 GMT
My biggest bugbear is by telephone. I get two or three a day, It says this is very important message from BT so please listen Your Telephone and Broadband will be disconnected tomorrow morning. Pease press 1 so we can sort our your account. Eventually my daughter was really rude to the woman and we got phoe calls ever 1/2 hour for the day. So now we just put the phone down. Yes we did try getting through to BT re this spam and had no luck.
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Post by rowanberry on Apr 5, 2019 20:59:55 GMT
My biggest bugbear is by telephone. I get two or three a day, It says this is very important message from BT so please listen Your Telephone and Broadband will be disconnected tomorrow morning. Pease press 1 so we can sort our your account. Eventually my daughter was really rude to the woman and we got phoe calls ever 1/2 hour for the day. So now we just put the phone down. Yes we did try getting through to BT re this spam and had no luck. Now it's just wrong that they are able to do that.
I have an aunt in a care home, and I used to Skype with her... but she got so many of these sorts of phone calls that her daughter had to put a block on her phone so that no unidentified callers can get through. Since I was using my pc it effectively stops me ringing her for a chat. 
Oh, well. Good old fashioned pen and paper!
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Post by Harold Smith on Apr 6, 2019 8:54:35 GMT
My biggest bugbear is by telephone. I get two or three a day, It says this is very important message from BT so please listen Your Telephone and Broadband will be disconnected tomorrow morning. Pease press 1 so we can sort our your account. Eventually my daughter was really rude to the woman and we got phoe calls ever 1/2 hour for the day. So now we just put the phone down. Yes we did try getting through to BT re this spam and had no luck. Hallo Helen, I was plagued by nuisance calls until I replaced my cordless (DECT) phones with a built in call blocker app (BT Call Guardian) and since then the silence has been bliss. You can block nuisance numbers by adding them to the block list. If the number calling you is not in your phone book you can get the caller to identify themselves and that way you can either accept or reject the call. As a lot of calls are automated there is no way they can get past the identification process as it has to be terminated by entering a special character before the message can be passed to your telephone or answer machine. For it to work you need 'caller id' added to your service. For me it works well and now the only calls I receive are from those numbers in my phone book or the legitimate ones that identify themselves. I hope this is of some help. Harold. Ps: Though the app I use is BT Call Guardian my actual service provider is Virgin Media. |
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Post by ianr on Apr 6, 2019 9:40:13 GMT
I often get nuisance calls though not as many as I used to. I registered with the telephone preference service www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html and it has cut the number of calls down mostly now there from outside Britain and the laws don't apply to them. It kinda depends what mood I'm in as to how I respond to the call sometimes I'll be down right rude others maybe not so much  I do like the ones claiming to be from microsoft telling me my windows pc is infected and in turn I'm infecting the web  I'll listen for quite a while sometimes 'mmm oh! yeah really' I find that quite hard to believe you know I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER strangely they just hang up  ian |
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Post by Harold Smith on Apr 6, 2019 10:50:30 GMT
I also registered with the Telephone Preference Service and though it did help a bit I still received many nuisance calls.
Some companies just ignored the TPS. When I informed one caller that I was on TPS register the response was that it was okay because they were sponsoring a government initiative (cavity insulation) so it didn't apply to them. Another company I challenged replied 'so what it's a waste of space' and hung up. There was nothing I could do about it because the numbers were withheld.
Harold.
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Post by Tringa on Apr 6, 2019 11:16:59 GMT
We have registered with TPS which seems to have worked, at least, a little.
We found the best way to deal with spam callers is the answer machine on the landline phone.
Family and friends know we have a machine so will leave a message, so we will return their call, or sometimes get to the phone as they are leaving the message.
Bona fide companies generally leave messages, although now and again they do not - I'd love to know why they don't.
The spam calls (either from a person or via an auto dialler) cease the call as soon as the answer machine cuts in.
Dave
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Post by rowanberry on Apr 6, 2019 19:33:50 GMT
I've had the callers telling me they're from Microsoft and want me to turn on my pc to fix a virus.... I've done the same and said I don't have a computer.
That moment of spluttering, stunned silence at the other end...  I've had one woman even argure with me, unable to believe this. Her English wasn't great, and I had to repeat myself a few times. 'I do NOT HAVE a COMPUTER.'
I don't what word it was she said before she hung up on me, (cheek!) but it sounded very rude. |
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I'll listen for quite a while sometimes 'mmm oh! yeah really' I find that quite hard to believe you know I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER 
I've had one woman even argure with me, unable to believe this. Her English wasn't great, and I had to repeat myself a few times. 'I do NOT HAVE a COMPUTER.'