Scammers - are they really that stupid?

[Veem]

I guess on the day before you will get a follow-up for the "small payment".

I got done like that a couple of months ago. Stupidly I paid up whilst all the while smelling a strong rat-like odour. Even more stupidly I'd divulged bank details. Every day I checked our account to make sure no unauthorised transactions had taken place. After about a week, when I was starting to feel safe there appeared a debit of 75€. I immediately rang the bank to cancel my card and the payment.

Fortunately, action was taken swiftly enough for nothing to have been lost, except my pride.

[Sparkle]

Same here mostly groanopost but this morning I had a la poste drop in the box saying delivery due Saturday then as quickly as it arrived it disappeared from the screen and not in any other folder so I closed down my pc and restarted it - just in case even though I have a vpn and threat protection on - I'm just risk averse

[suein56]

Do all these scam mails arrive via Orange.fr ?

[Sparkle]

Do all these scam mails arrive via Orange.fr ?

In my case - yes and when I look a bit further the address is not even mine and sometimes is just a long line of numbers & letters.

[suein56]

Orange is notoriously bad at stopping spam ..
You can up your spam detection yourself within your Orange a/c but it's never going to be brilliant.

[Nomoss]

Lets all just hope the future is NOT Orange!

[Blaze]

I seem to be the only one that doesn't get swamped with spam in my Orange account ! We dropped Orange when we changed to fibre though my orange email address is still accessible. I don't send anything but occasionally receive mail and it's never spam.
OH gets spam on his Yahoo email account but I get almost none.
Perhaps it has something to do with the internet sites people look at ????

[DaveW]

Your mail address may have been pwned, if so the spammers will be using that to send you spam. It doesn’t matter who your mail provider is the spammers will send the mail, though it should end up in you spam mailbox, 99% of mine do.

Check if you’ve been pwned.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

[RobertArthur]

@ Blaze, it is of course a good idea to stay away from the dark side of the internet. For many years the problem is that you are supposed to leave your email address almost everywhere: internet shops, government agencies, you name it. Your email address will also be in a lot of inboxes, also of friends and family members. Do you check their personal computers, laptops, smartphones to see if they are safe? Only one databreach, only one computer without adequate firewall or virus protection, only one organisation using an easy to remember password for its database is enough to get your email address on the free market, worldwide. Where millions of addresses and privacy-sensitive data are for sale, the dark side in action.

The problem is that you can take several standard defensive measures, update your anti-virus program, also install one on your smartphone. If you want more however you'll need an ict training course.

For those already familiar with data breaches these examples.

Easier to understand, but almost unbelievable, the problems of Yahoo or the hotel chain Marriot where hackers accessed 383 million customer records.

Mr. Postman, simple telephone, where are you? It's so easy, it's so easy to fall in love with the internet, but I'm afraid " You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave ".

[Blaze]

@RobertArthur - yes, leaving your email address can lead to problems. I have for years had several different email addresses for different purposes and this seems to work well. I never leave an email address unless obligatory and tick or untick the box so as not to receive publicity.
It's also possible that I get less junk as I'm a Mac user, and I don't have a smartphone !!