Security help for my 75 year old mother

Spam emails, calls are all spoofed. Blocking them, reporting them is a total waste of time. They don’t exist anymore. They spam and gone. Those to
who take the bait could be sorry but the number is not real.

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Do you have any idea how much this happens? In this day and age just about anyone (Yes all of us here) have had our data exposed on the Dark Web or elsewhere due to data breaches. Our info is out there and the scammers are trying to make a buck. Most of these scams are harmless and it’s just scammers trying to see if you reply and are a real person. They get paid by the advertisers that are trying to reach you.

The Police won’t do Chit…Even if they wanted to there simply aren’t enough of them . These online scams happen millions of times a day. Unfortunately technology improvements are both good and bad

I have literally hundreds of blocked/spam phone numbers and continue to add any I get. I report every single spam and phishing email I get. The phone calls have greatly reduced after a month or two of blocking and now I rarely get any. Same goes for emails. It doesn’t take but a second to click and report spam so why not. Who knows if any of it is effective or not and as it takes no effort to do. My VPN service has dark web scanning and I did get one report and immediately cancelled that account. Being proactive these days is important IMHO. As I mentioned before, there is a government agency, here in Canada, dedicated to these scams with the resources necessary to investigate and hopefully make a difference. I’ve never lost anything and laugh at threats, but then I never go on line without protection like a good VPN, and certainly don’t connect to public free WiFi.

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@Miki not sure what cell carrier you use but most of the larger ones have free apps that block the spammers/scammers. I have AT&T wireless and their app automatically sends any non contact to voice mail without the phone even ringing or the number coming across and rarely do the spammers leave a message.

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Every time I order something from Amazon, I get a lot of spam in my email. So they must be either selling my info or the automatically distribute it to the spammers.

Pull a “Beekeeper” on them! lol

that will def fix it :+1:

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I 100% agree with you and yes, I absolutely understand the scope and reasons behind these scams and spams.
Paull had not made the level of demands known or if there were any threats made to his elderly Grandmother and was exactly why I inquired had she been threatened and advised on how he might want to followed up if she had.

When a person emailed his Grandmother with demands, it suffices to say, they may have also threaten her with harm, then that is an entirely whole other level of crime and should be taken seriously considering all the nut jobs out there today. His post was vague and I was fishing.
Were she threatened with harm and demands were made of her, then they should in the least have a filed report given to the degree of the threat. It may have also fallen under a felony crime which they can go online and report it as I said to the FBI.
At least that IP address if they have secured one that’s traceable, would be recorded and receipts filed. I understand these scams are enormous in number. But threatening someone with harm would no longer be just a scam or spam, it then becomes a crime.

That being said of course, with the absolute bare minimum of the Paull’s posting.

You are 100% correct about the emails being spam, block em and forget about em.:muscle::clap:t2:

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Sign up mom with LifeLock who will monitor everything and advise of data breaches with instructions on actions to take. She will sleep better and not worry. DeleteMe is also handy

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Here’s another one that will protect you.

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I bet they don’t know that her big pistol packin grandson/brother/son-in-law/nephew who used to be a bouncer in a bar lives with her? Not to mention her 2 unfriendly Rottweilers.

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Some good suggestions here. I agree check with local authorities if they will investigate. Most local police won’t unless involves violence or major theft. But extortion is a serious crime. But the “just ignore” it is a valid response, if not the last thing. These scammer’s MOI is to get you to engage in conversation with them and glean info for scam or threat. Block the email address or IP.

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I’m a 76 yo male and have received 5 of these since 09/15. All have different email addresses but are exactly the same except one of them asked for 1800. They give me a Bitcoin account and 2 days or they will expose me. The photo they show was my address 6 years ago and include an old phone number I no longer have. They say they have control of my mobile phone too. They claim to have observed me watching porn and basically insinuate that I’m a degenerate or maybe a pedophile and will expose me to all of my contacts. I just mark as spam as going to the police I figure would be a waste of time. I’m pretty sure whoever sends them must be certain they can’t be traced. I think by not responding is best. They probably send out 1000’s and if 1 person falls for it they are lucky. Not sure if a Bitcoin wallet address is traceable but the cops would probably put it on the to do list as they have enough to deal with

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Smart move… ignore and spam it.

Its kind of funny that they are preying on probably mostly elderly people and asking for Bitcoin. As if many would know anything about it. Some present company excluded :wink:.

There was a scam many years ago where they pretended to be from a local utility company and demanded a Prepaid Card from CVS or similar to clear the owed balance in their account. Of course like bitcoin it was untraceable. All they needed was the card # info and they got the money.

I received the same email from different email addresses at least a dozen times the past few months. All you can do is block them. These are harmless scams and just about everybody’s email address has been involved in some type of breach at this point.

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This kind of reminds me of those commercials whereas companies are trying to sell a service to keep your deed of your property from not being placed under somebody else’s name. I’ve never heard of it myself, but why would a escrow company allow another person to put their name on a deed? There is supposed to be a lot of verification of identity in these type of transactions.

At first I thought it was funny and shared with some of my friends but actually it’s not. I blew it off but to some it may be frightening.

Sorry i didnt mean it was funny that they sent it and are scarring people but how they are expecting elderly people to have access to Bitcoin. Poor choice of words by me.

These people are the scum of the earth and should be dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately most of them hide from authorities grasp.

There is a guy on yt that hunts them down and exposes them. Unfortunately its a losing battle but at least he gets some of them.

The best defense is to keep people informed of the scams and use common sense.

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I believe they are targeted to a certain age group.

Not gonna argue but i havent seen one in my inboxes yet but my parents sure have. And ive been way more active online then they have been. Not saying you cant get one but they know their general target.

Am I the only one that got an offer to join AARP 2 weeks before my 50th birthday? That one hurt… lol

These scammers know where older people might visit online and leave emails as compared to a kid. They get that info and target those emails.

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I was referring to the first post targeting his 75 year old mother and those type of scams.

And the elderly do care. They scam them about their grandkids or an electric bill. The scammers will take their last dollar if they can.

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