Test your scam awareness

[cinelli]

This BBC 5 Live online test may be of interest. I got 7 out of 8

https://takefive-stopfraud.org.uk/takethetest/

Cinelli

[XFool]

This BBC 5 Live online test may be of interest. I got 7 out of 8

I also got 7 out of 8. I assume we both 'failed' on question 6 - Text from bank re validating card transactions

I thought this might be genuine and couldn't be sure, if it wasn't, how it would work. So, on the precautionary principal, I flagged it as suspicious. I don't have such an arrangement myself, but if I did I would know about it and so have more confidence in the message.

So, failing on this one counts as 9 out of 8 AFAIAC!

[bungeejumper]

All eight correct. But I had to think quite hard about number 7.

BJ

[GeoffF100]

My credit card provider has never sent me a text message asking me to confirm credit card transactions, and I have not given them my mobile number, so I "failed" that test.

[Breelander]

This BBC 5 Live online test may be of interest. I got 7 out of 8

Good test - unlike some I've seen in the past this one makes you think hard about the answers.

[vrdiver]

7 / 8, but failed for being too cautious (Q6) which I can live with

I don't tend to worry about being scammed, as in, I use 2 factor authentication, use https, individual ID/passwords for each account, encrypt backups, don't believe any of my financial institutions will contact me and therefore always get back to them via my own link / different phone, use AV, check for malware regularly etc. (so actually, pretty bothered about it, but try to minimise the chances!)

What does worry me is that at some point the technology of scamming will move beyond me, at which point I WILL become vulnerable. I haven't figured out what to do at that stage, as I suspect it will be quite a few years between becoming an easy scam victim and going completely gaga...

[Slarti]

This BBC 5 Live online test may be of interest. I got 7 out of 8

I also got 7 out of 8. I assume we both 'failed' on question 6 - Text from bank re validating card transactions

I thought this might be genuine and couldn't be sure, if it wasn't, how it would work. So, on the precautionary principal, I flagged it as suspicious. I don't have such an arrangement myself, but if I did I would know about it and so have more confidence in the message.

So, failing on this one counts as 9 out of 8 AFAIAC!

Same here and I had to go back and do it again to see why 6 was wrong.

My credit cards have no authority to text me about anything as I opted out of such a thing, so to me it had to be a scam, but one somehow attacking my phone.
Or perhaps setting up for something more sophisticated.

Slarti

Edit: PS, I would have phoned my card provider on the normal security number if I got such a text.

[Maroochydore]

Or perhaps setting up for something more sophisticated.

When setting up a new payment I usually try it out by first sending £1 and asking the recipient to confirm all is good (as many people do).

The last time I did this, after confirmation from the recipient I tried to transfer the balance but my account was blocked by the bank. I had to go through to the security department and explain who the recipient was, what the payment was for and why I had sent the £1 followed by a larger amount.

They then explained that typically scammers will try a small amount before hitting an account big-time, hence the block on the account.

I must admit I was pleased to know that Lloyds were pro-actively looking for fraudulent activity on my account.

[ten0rman]

Well, well, well!

I too failed on Q.6. But I have to say that as far as I am concerned ANY message which includes a 'phone no. is automatically suspect. A request to ring the bank, with NO number, ie find it yourself, is to my mind much more safe.

ten0rman

[XFool]

Just had a phone call from: "The technical department of BT Openreach".

Unfortunately I found myself at the same time to be unaccountably busy. As I usually do at these times...

[robbelg]

I too got 7/8 having "failed" on 6

Like everyone else I would not have responded to the text but phoned on a "known" number - seems like we're all ultra cautious.

Rob

[Julian]

Well, well, well!

I too failed on Q.6. But I have to say that as far as I am concerned ANY message which includes a 'phone no. is automatically suspect. A request to ring the bank, with NO number, ie find it yourself, is to my mind much more safe.

ten0rman

Me too. I got 7 out of 8 with my "mistake" being to call 6 a scam when the quiz says no. I suppose it's because I personally have never been sent such a list of transactions to view.

If I was getting accurately targeted scams every day, or even every couple of weeks, my simple rules for handling them might take up too much time but I probably only get 1 or 2 a year so my set of simple rules is as follows...

1 - Is the message claiming to be from an organisation that I have a relationship with?
NO - It's an obvious scam. Ignore it.
YES - My account might be compromised so assume it is a genuine issue. Go to step 2.

2 - Do not reply to the original communication or use any links or phone numbers that might be in the original message. Instead look up (via Google or from previous written correspondence) the appropriate customer service number and call the organisation in question to see if the alert was genuine.

Having been a victim of identity fraud in the past (from external attacks from third parties not because I fell for a scam) I do think it is important to not automatically assume all "you have suspicious activity" alerts are scams and step 2 makes sure any concerns are followed up safely.

- Julian

[Slarti]

If you enabled javascript to do the test ... potential scam awareness failure

It doesn't need javascript as I have scrubbed it off my machine and it worked.

Slarti

[Biggles]

Yeah, I failed on 6 as I read it too quickly and assumed it was asking me to ring the phone number. When I read it properly, I saw it actually said they would message me from that number.

[UncleEbenezer]

6 sounds like a failure on the part of the sender and the quiz. If it's that hard to figure out, then always treat it as suspect.

Being able to tell a scam from a real message is a very poor substitute for defence in depth. We've had a secure solution to verifying a sender (PGP) for more than a quarter of a century. And important communication shouldn't share a band with anything that could be suspect: hence anyone who treats all communications to your public email address as suspect are not wrong.

[malakoffee]

8 out of 8. What a smartypants !

It still intrigues me why people get tricked into the old " . . . . transfer into a safe account" scam.

Surely we all respond ( to the bank ) :-
Well, it looks like YOU have a problem.
You must LOCK the account and sort it out.
When I have confirmed that you have locked the account, I will phone in on the well-known number to discuss the matter.

[XFool]

This one is clearly making the rounds again:

https://conversation.which.co.uk/techno ... -pc-scams/

[jfgw]

Question 6 asks, "Do you trust them?", not "Do you think that the message is genuine?" To trust the sender of such a message, I would want to have a high level of certainty that it was genuine. Merely thinking that it wasprobably genuine would not suffice.

Julian F. G. W.

[tsr2]

I was also suspicious of question 6.

I have in the past received such texts, but not in that format. Post Office Mastercard uses a similar concept where you simply reply with something like either "mine" or "fake". I don't recall them putting a number to ring.

[Alaric]

This one is clearly making the rounds again:

To monitor your computer, they would need the current IP address. How does this tell them the phone number?

I suspect there's a possible defensive hack that you should periodically reboot your modem to get a different IP address. With the number of gadgets that use a wi-fi, the modem is always busy, so it's not as if you get a new IP every time you use the Internet.