{"id":1580,"date":"2024-11-17T12:59:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T12:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2024-11-17T13:00:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T13:00:26","slug":"meerkat-prompts-scammers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=1580","title":{"rendered":"Meerkat Prompts: Scammers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Dear darth_timon,We noted a transaction on your Paypal account. If this wasn\u2019t yours, call to stop it. Otherwise, \u00a3 759.99 will be deducted.<\/td><\/tr>
Order Id:<\/strong> 561-SATJOUZ-207-HMBTUEUO-7787
Transaction Id:<\/strong> 41950SATJOUZ-207-HMBTUEUO78561<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The above text is an email I received, which rightfully wound up right into my spam folder. It was quite impressively dressed up as the genuine article, but there are a few checks you can make to determine if an email like this is the real deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, PayPal would never address me as ‘darth_timon’. They know my name, and they’d use it. Secondly, it’s always worth checking the sender’s email address. Official communications from PayPal will come from a PayPal email address. Thirdly, if you are uncertain, go to the site in question – not<\/strong> via any links in the email, I hasten to add – and check your account history. This also works with any other banking, money transfer, or retail service. If you ever receive anything like this, from anywhere, never ever<\/strong> click on the links in the email (or for that matter, in a text message, if that’s how you’ve been contacted). Type in the business’s website and go to it via that. Contact them – again not via any email addresses or phone numbers in the email or text – to find out if the query is genuine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I consider myself to be reasonably savvy when it comes to stuff like this, but that doesn’t mean I’m fool-proof, so it pays to be cautious in situations like this. I never answer calls from numbers I don’t recognise, under the expectation that if it’s important, the caller will leave a message. Sometimes calls come in via the landline, and our landline phone doesn’t have a screen, so I have no choice but to answer it. Most of the calls to the landline are sales pitches or scammers, and the best guidance I can offer with these is to avoid saying yes, or giving any affirmation, as one trick scammers use is to record you saying yes, and using that recording to use your identity. It’s best to hang up if you believe the call is a scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I rather despise scammers and spammers. They are modern-day snake oil salesmen. They are the evolution of the con artist in the street, the latest form of the hustler. They target anyone and everyone, and will latch on to the vulnerable, without a second thought for the lives they destroy. If they can fleece someone for their life savings, they will do so in a heartbeat. Often efforts to scam people are highly organised, involving call centres filled with people working off lists. I am not totally oblivious to how for some, they have been roped into something, but others do it because they are greedy, cowardly thieves, without any compassion for the vulnerable people they rob from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, it seems this element of human nature will stay with us. As society changes, so too do the methods of con artists. With that in mind, it pays to be vigilant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Meerkat Prompts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear darth_timon,We noted a transaction on your Paypal account. If this wasn\u2019t yours, call to stop it. Otherwise, \u00a3 759.99 will be deducted. Order Id: 561-SATJOUZ-207-HMBTUEUO-7787Transaction Id: 41950SATJOUZ-207-HMBTUEUO78561 The above text is an email I received,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,12],"tags":[15,28],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-and-society","category-random-prompts","tag-random-prompts","tag-society"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-11.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1606,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}