"How was your shipping experience" email scam

I just received an email with the title quoted in the thread title inviting me to take part in a survey. Lots of colourful "Royal Mail" supporting material but the perpetrators can't spell received so I have marked as spam and deleted.

The idea is clearly that many of us have received parcels from the Royal Mail at this time of year, that some will be taken in and in some way defrauded or at best added to a sucker list.

How does posted on 4th December and recieved on 24th - they wouldn't dare to really ask.

I've had a novel scam recently, and so has Mrs. Rag. I received a text message purporting to be from Halifax asking if I had recently set up a Direct Debit to a Mr. Rajhani. I have a joint account with Mrs. Rag at Halifax but it is generally what I would term a 'dormant account' - the text asked me to click on a link to 'Halifaxdirectdebitblocker' - as a precaution I put this link into my laptop and lo and behold it came up with a 'Dangerous site' warning from my security software. This confirmed it was a scam. Probably phishing for account details.

A few days later Mrs. Rag had the same or a similar text message saying that there had been 'unusual access activity' on her Halifax account. Again the link given (different this time) when put into the laptop came up with 'Dangerous site' warning.

The bar stewards do not stop for Christmas do they?!

Another interesting 'hit' I had was after looking at one of the forum 'partner' websites I later went onto the Times newspaper (I have a sub with them for my daily news) and whilst reading one of the articles the website 'popped up' again in the middle of the article! - hardly the thing one expects to see in the middle of the Times, an offer of cheap milling cutters!! My question is then addressed to Media Time as to whether there are tracking cookies being loaded onto my laptop whenever I log on or look at some of the forum 'partners'? This may be the first time I've seen this as I normally 'wipe' the cookies after browsing and before changing sites.

All very strange.

Edited By Frances IoM on 26/12/2020 22:03:33

Edited By Frances IoM on 26/12/2020 22:10:22

About two weeks before Christmas I received a call on my mobile phone, from a UK number I did not know, so I declined to answer it. Fast forward to a few days ago, when I received a text to tell me that my Littlewoods parcel would be delivered that day. All very nice, you might say ,except that I never heard of Littlewoods sending parcels to anyone and I was not expecting anything from anyone !

A scam ? sounds like one, just dont know where they got my number from ???

Frances, I've posted before :

In other words it's us tracking users who come from ads on Facebook, not Facebook tracking our users.

Facebook obviously know who has clicked on ads on their website without needing tacking at our end.

Neil

Edited By Frances IoM on 27/12/2020 12:29:37

Neil, Frances,

I clicked on a link in a forum post which took me to one of the forum advertisers from the East Midlands. I have no known connection with Faecesbook (but probably they know me now) and believe it to be an abhorrent evil of which no good will come of it.

As I said, I usually wipe cookies when changing websites, even though my security software also wipes them every 15 minutes or so. This then infers the advertiser loaded a tracker which followed me to the Times website. This has a 'reverse consequence' in that it has had a negative effect on me, I find it underhanded and deceitful, and I shall forthwith avoid any dealings with these people.

Not a good advert I'm afraid!

The recent posts on my thread are somewhat above my head but, for bears of relatively little brain who just want to surf, etc safely, is there a consensus about best practice, please?

I am using Firefox under Win 10.

I know Neil is against ad blockers but would they help?

What about FF's "do not track feature?

Edited By Frances IoM on 27/12/2020 19:02:29

Frances IoM:

Thanks for the explanation.

My OP was about scam email and I am inclined to attribute the growth in this to my recent, rather reluctant, use of Zoom during the pandemic.

I have noticed this. A number of sites that have no obvious use for a date of birth ask for it. I nowadays never enter a correct one, if at all.

The latest was a charity, a hospice, where I wanted to donate in memory of a friend. They asked for date of birth so I found another way to donate. I could not understand any reason for them asking. From the comment above, I can see that a separate organisation operating the site for the hospice might be selling on the data in some way.

Martyn

I have just had a text from the DVLA saying I'm due a refund. DVLA.refund017.com so it looks like a new round of scams.

Date of Birth is used by some legitimate operators as a way of confirming your identity if you ring them up. The thing to do is have a standard fake date that you use for when it is not an important site where it is legitimate and relevant - like DVLA.

I take the point about guarding one's date of birth and note the idea of having an "official" birthday (like the Queen) but if data-pooling became the norm the latter could be problematic.

I see no harm, however, in acknowledging being over twenty-one or even more provided a precise date is not needed.

The NHS blithely rely on your name and DOB for identification.