A New Scam
Well, it was new to me, but so well done I thought I'd let you know about it.
I've got some stuff I need to get rid of, so today I listed several items for sale on Gumtree and Ebay.
One was a home theater system, listed at a good price as the 3D blu-ray player that drives the system has an issue. Which I detailed in the ad.
Almost immediately, I got a text message from someone wanting to buy it. They would get Fedex to pick it up (Fedex would do all the packing) and they would send me the Fedex link that would allow me to get paid in advance of the pickup.
Sounds good so far, right?
So they sent me the link. That gave me my first suspicion. I didn't like the URL.
But went to it anyway.
It looked totally legit. Asked me for my credit/debit card number to transfer the payment to.
When I entered the number, it displayed it back to me with the middle 8 digits replaced by asterisks, so that it looks like it's been stored securely.
BUT THEN...
It displayed a form for me to enter:
- The current balance
- The expiry month and year and
- The CVV
In other words, everything you would need to withdraw all the money available.
No one needs that information to deposit money, only to withdraw it.
This used two of the classic tools of the scam:
- A funnel. It leads you on, one small commitment at a time.
- Greed. It promises a reward, in this case a successful sale of something I'd listed.
Has anyone else come across this? I suspect it might be fairly new.
Recent Comments
9
beware of these scammers they always looking for a loophole to enter into your system and stealing all the confidential information. And you rightly said Greed is the one trap that causes all the damage. I am already a victim of those and lost a couple. At first, I gained some money and thinks all is ok and legit but when move further I fell into the trap and lost money but thank God I understand quickly.
Absolutely. There are two things you need to bear in mind. 1) if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is and 2) what could they do with the information they're asking for?
I have never heard of this but it sounds bad. Thank you so much for making this post and letting us all know. There are so many scammers out there these days it makes it hard to believe anything. Stay safe and always be careful when entering credit card details. All the best to your success. Take care.
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Thanks for the heads up, Phil.
Recently I have received quite a few emails and text messages letting me know that someone I have never heard of died and left me a pile of money. Yeah, right!
So over these scam artists.
Stay safe.
Louise
Develop an attitude of just laughing at these losers and not spending any more than a few seconds on them.