SCAM! SCAM! SCAM!

[Jerry_Atrick]

I only got involved in IT after leaving high school in 1983 - around the time the IBM PC and first Apple Mac came out.. An old school friend reminded me in a year 11 "careers" class how when some other student said they wanted to be a programmer I blurted out "Who'd want to do that? Not much money in that...".. So, anything before 1983/1984 is foreign to me.. except I worked at AV Jennings when they were around for a bit, and did get to work on an IBM 360, which still had core (doughnut) memory! But I was brought in for my Prime 50 series experience and didn't spend much time on that IBM.

 

I look back to the older days, which I think were much more fun than these days in the business. There is no doubt, the work done today is miles ahead of what we did, especially in the analytics and AI world, as well, as robotics and miniature systems. But these days, especially in the commercial world, we worked across almost all facets - from wiring cables, to system architecture/admin, to programming, database development, operating system tuning, networking, etc. Nowadays, you tend to pick one specialisation and work in it.. Soul destroying for someone like me. The stuff you did sounds like pure heaven!

 

[old man emu]

Here's a way to get scammers to drop you like a hot potato. There are many good guys who do all they can to shut down scammers. Apparently, one of the best is a bloke named Jim Browning. Have a look at the introduction on his YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBNG0osIBAprVcZZ3ic84vw

 

Going by his accent, I'd say that he is British, although the voice-over is American. 

 

[onetrack]

I well remember reading an article about a bloke in America being called by a scammer, who was trying to acquire his CC details. Unfortunately, the scammer had made the mistake of calling a senior FBI operative who specialised in CC fraud. He led the scammer on beautifully, and nailed him like a fly hit with a swatter. The Americans extradited him and charged him and jailed him for a lengthy period.

 

I like to just pick up the unknown number or private number call, and say nothing initially. Then when the scammer has said "Hello? Hello? Hello?, a few times (an Indian voice is often a giveaway), I say quietly, as if I'm speaking to another person, "Have you got the trace on this call?" The line normally goes dead, instantly!

[old man emu]

Scamming scammers is s full-time occupation for many Youtubers. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=scamming+a+scammer 

 

It makes you wonder what sort of society produces this type of criminal in such large numbers. Would you ever trust an Indian? And for you lucky ones who don't live in one of our Capital cities, you don't know how deeply Indians have infiltrated the business world. If there is one word to describe them, it is "amoral". Making it worse is that our health system seems to be overrun with them.

 

Do you remember the Columbo Plan? Launched in 1951, The goal was to not only build the developing countries’ physical capital (including technology and infrastructure such as hospitals, roads and schools) but also to raise peoples’ skill levels so they could effectively utilise resources and deliver services in areas such as health, education and public administration. By the 1980s over 20,000 students had the opportunity to study in Australia in their field, with the intention that they would assist their home countries. Students had to return home after their studies were complete, a number later migrated permanently to Australia under skilled migration programs. So much for meeting the intention of the plan. Get educated in Australia; go home for a year or two, then come back to where the money was. Is it little wonder that  finding an ethnically European doctor in our health system is like finding a gold nugget in a tailings heap.

[red750]

NEVER SAY "YES."

 

For the sake of this post, let's say your name is John Brown. The phone rings, and the call goes like this:

 

You:     Hello?

Caller:  Hello, is this Mr John Brown?

You:      Yes.

 

The call is recorded.

 

Later, when you are billed for something you didn't agree to, they play a tape in court:

 

You:     Hello?

Caller:  Hello, is this Mr John Brown?

You:      Yes.

Caller:  Would you like to buy Sydney Harbour Bridge?

You:      Yes  (from the recording)

Callers lawyer:  There Your Honor, he agreed to buy Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 

Always respond to their first question with "Who are you?" or "Who wants to know?", then tell them to p1ss off.

 

Had a call today. "We are ringing about LED lights. Do you have LED lights?"

Me: "This is a DO NOT CALL number. Take your LED lights and stick them up your ar5e."

[red750]

I received the following email in my inbox.

 

 

We haven't had a Telstra account in over two years. We use a different provider for home phone and NBN, and another for mobiles.

[old man emu]

I'm a Telstra customer, and I did get that same email. One look at the sender's email address and I knew it was a scam. Telstra doesn't even send that sort of message. They simply add outstanding amounts to your next bill.

 

 

[red750]

I completed a report to Scamwatch with a copy of the email.

[onetrack]

That's one of the more unsophisticated scam emails. When you get one that utilises the headers and footers of the proper recipient, is well-worded, and even contains the regular fine print at the bottom, it makes you start to think it's genuine.

But the key points are - any communication that is genuine, addresses you by your name - hardly any company ever sends an email with a live link in it, to click on - and holding your mouse over the live link, always brings up a dodgy-looking live link address.

 

This is the reason I love Mailwasher, it allows you to examine the entire email, the complete email header with all the technical details of the email origin - and all without even downloading the email from your service providers servers.

Then you can mark it as "Good", "Friend", or "Blacklist" - and you can Blacklist just the sender, or the entire domain (keeping in mind, scammers love using the same domain) - and as a final upraised digit sign via email, you can "bounce" the email back to the sender, which makes your email address appear to be invalid.

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by onetrack

[Yenn]

After many years I came to realize that the difference between a scammer and Telstra is a very fine line.

They will bill you for anything they can think of and never believe your queries about the legitimacy of their claims.

When the upped my fees, without telling me until half way through the period I decided to change.

[Old Koreelah]

Even after being privatised, Telstra is a huge, ungainly bureaucracy where some departments don’t even know of the existence of others. 

[nomadpete]

I hope you don't think that any of the competing telcos are any different.

[willedoo]

I used to have a mobile plan with Telstra. It was $55 per month with $500 of free calls; above that limit $1 per minute call fee plus the connection fee. Switched to Aldi and get unlimited free calls for $15 per month with 3gb data thrown in which rolls over unused data at the end of the month. Coverage is just as good and fewer dropouts. Also no constant Telstra correspondence telling you how good for you their continual price increases are.  There's no comparison.

[Marty_d]

Yep, I'm on the Aldi plan too.  Never had a problem.

[nomadpete]

Hey Marty how do you come to have an Aldi phone plan?

 

There is no Aldi in Taswegia!

[Marty_d]

13 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Hey Marty how do you come to have an Aldi phone plan?

 

There is no Aldi in Taswegia!

No, but the Interwebby thing is everywhere.

 

https://www.aldimobile.com.au/collections/mobile-plans

[nomadpete]

The interwebbything might be everywhere, but Aldi mobile phone service isn't.

 

Although it is a 'PMT service' (Poor Mans Telstra), using Telstra infrastructure, it has very little coverage outside capital Cities. 

 

When we go a'wanderin around 'this wide brown land', we leave the Aldi one at home and take one Optus SIM and one Telstra SIM to make sure we can get service.

 

I haven't found any problems around Tassie. But Aldi phone doesn't work over most of the Big Island, oop north. (Meaning in Australia proper)

[spacesailor]

Optus is very poor between Orange & Dubbo !

.

Most plàces near there are Telstra only.

spacesailor

[willedoo]

Aldi suits me as I don't travel much any more. No grey nomading for me as I've spent half my life being paid to travel around. After living out of a suitcase for all those years, I'm really looking forward in retirement to having a steady home life and staying put for once. It's back to front to what most people my age are doing.

[nomadpete]

Spacey, I agree that *generally* Telstra has the best coverage throughout Aust. But we found a few exceptions. I can't remember which towns, but some had very poor Telstra coverage (nil), but good Optus coverage. If I had to choose only one, it would be Telstra.

[nomadpete]

I understand your sentiment Willie, but I'm the opposite.

 

I spent decades driving or flying around. I lived out of a suitcase, waking up in motels or hotels, looking at the ceiling and wondering where the heck I am today.

 

But I was too busy to stop and explore for myself. I kept thinking, 'I wish I had time to get to know these places'.

 

Now I'm happy to travel at my own pace. To stop at a nice location for a few days or a week. Now when I travel, although the view outside might change, I almost always wake up in the same comfy bed in our familiar old camper.

 

Works for me.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Towards the end of my time in Aus, I travelled a bit for work, and when I moved to the UK, the idea was 2 years here and 2 years in the US and decide where I wanted to live. The first 9 months "here" were travelling in the US, then the next 3 or 4 throughout the Czech Republic and France.. Even when we had UK clients I was away Sunday night to Friday night, between about 8 different sites.

 

After I finished that job, I was working on a dot bomb company in San Fransicso - 3 weeks there a week here. Then back to the original company as a contractor, when the dot bomb went "poopie in its pants" (to quote the vernacular of John Cadogan on yootoob). That went for a couple of years.. then some other gigs for another couple of years.. When we moved back to Aus, there was no work for what I now did (Nuclear - mainly power, but a touch of military installation - not making the stuff, though). So, I moved to financial services. From that point on, I had become a "home boy" and in the last 15 years or so have only travelled with work twice...

 

And I  miss it.. As a bit if a lad (or hooligan), I had some fantastic times.. Of course, they were in the halcyon days - expense accounts were to be used.. I think I lost about 2kg from my liver shrinking back to its normal size in recovery. I have had the pleasure of meeting great people and made many life long friends (and maybe one or two enemies). Sadly, I am too long out of the game, otherwise I would jump back into it in a heartbeat.. (now the kids are older).

 

[willedoo]

Working away is ok up to the point where your own dog barks at you when you come home (ungrateful traitor).

[spacesailor]

willedoo

Be thankful you Have that dog to bark at you !.

They don,t live that long and are greatly missed, no bark from our replacement Kat. ( the wife dosn,t like it only tolerate  ) .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

If your old dog barks at you it's because you smell funny or his eyesight is failing. Usually the latter. Nev