| Postal
Scam:
The Trading Standards Office are making people
aware of the following scam:
A card is posted through your door from a company
called PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) suggesting that they were
unable to deliver a parcel and that you need to contact them on
0906 6611911 (a Premium rate number).
DO NOT call this number, as this is a mail scam
originating from Belize.
If you call the number and you start to hear
a recorded message you will already have been billed £315
for the phone call.
If you do receive a card with these details,
then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 020 7239 6655.
For more information, see the Crime Stoppers
website:
http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/helping-prevent-crime/scams/postal-delivery-scam
Telephone Scams…
A reminder to be on your guard if telephoned
by someone purporting to be from Windows, Microsoft or something
similar and claiming that they have noticed that you have been
having problems with your PC, that you have a virus, or have failed
Internet downloads etc. and offering to help you. There have been
a variety of different versions of the scam but they invariably
end with you either visiting a website and downloading some software
supposedly to protect your PC but in reality will steal passwords,
credit card details etc. or paying for a ‘maintenance contract’
of some description, which turns out to be a fake.
The callers can be very persistent and sometimes
ring several times.
The fact is that Microsoft do not monitor your
surfing habits (nor does anybody else come to that). No one will
know if you are having problems downloading from the web or have
downloaded a virus etc.
Anti-spy Virus…
The Anti-spy type virus has raised it’s
ugly head again and is doing the rounds. It downloads it’s
self after a visit to an infected website and pops up a message
which says that you have been infected with a virus and asks you
to pay for and download some software which will delete it. The
software, again, is fake and is designed to harvest credit card
details. Malwarebytes, available from HERE,
usually gets rid of it. However, in some cases the infection is
so severe that it has to be dis-infected by a computer repairer.
Unfortunately, many ant-virus packages miss
it, including AVG and Macfee. The solution is to get one of the
better packages, such as Norton Anti-virus 2011 or Kaspersky 2011
(only install the Internet Security versions if you have a fast,
modern PC) and make sure it’s kept up to date.
Anti-virus packages, even the best, can only stop viruses they
know about. It is also advisable to download Malwarebytes now
and keep it up to date because some versions of Anti-spy can block
access to anti-virus websites.
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