You're welcome. It's very disconcerting but it's not new, it's a
perennial human problem... I remember my (54 now) mother (obviously
older!) saying to me as a kid in the 70s or 80s that at one point they
had to ban adverts in newspapers that said things like "Last chance to
send £10 to..." and people would actually send a cheque.
This seems weird when you describe it from the outside but (if I can dip
into my academic voice for a minute), there is a lot of discussion about
how the mind works. Many people maintain, based on good evidence, that
the instinctive human reaction is to *believe things first*, then
realise they should not believe them. It can be very quick but still
(they argue) happens in that order until you're really familiar with the
kind of thing you're dealing with.
Un-believing things requires experience, background information, and so
on. So we all need to help each other with reality checks to get the
hang of it. Before you know it, you're the one saying to a friend 'that
looks like a scam' as you get familiar with it. The important thing is
to ask, and then to understand the explanations so you can internalise
them.
Because the other aspect to 'believing things first' is that *it doesn't
apply when it's something happening to other people.* It's a lot easier
to look at someone else's situation and see what's going on.
I once reset my ebay password, went to my email, a message came in about
my ebay account (I saw it arrive), so I went to fill it in to sort out
the password. When it asked for my PIN on my bank card, I started to
wonder (and even then, it took me a few minutes). The scam email had
just got lucky, arriving when I was expecting one from ebay. Thankfully,
I hesitated long enough to get my wits together, and I appreciated the
fact that my bank always says in emails 'we will never ask you for your
PIN' in plain language.
So it could be any of us at any time, we just need to be distracted or
uncertain;)
On 9 Nov 2023, at 15:54, Gillian Snoxall wrote:
Many thanks, Jason. I am grateful for your advice.
Gilly
On 9 Nov 2023, at 15:47, 'Jason Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group
<smug@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Dear Gillian,
This looks like a scam. Firstly, you've never heard of it (always a
good clue). But there are many others, for instance a US phone number
for a UK person, the gmail address it's sent from is gibberish, then
the fact that they claim to have already taken the money.
I think you can safely ignore it. What we should do regardless of
whether we get scams by email is to glance at bank statements when
they come in and look for strange activity. For instance if someone
had somehow got access to your accounts, they typically take small
amounts regularly over a period of time before realising you are not
checking, then trying for larger ones. Banks are quite good at
spotting unusual ones, so they can get a fair amount by taking a
tenner each month and being patient.
But this is a scam, don't worry. Keep an eye on your bank statements
and query with the bank if anything odd does occur.
Cheers,
J
On 9 Nov 2023, at 15:34, Gillian Snoxall wrote:
Hello Smuggers,
I have received this email, purporting to come from Norton Prime
(though no email address given).
I have definitely not placed any order with Norton at any time, and
wish to cancel the one that is the subject of the email. I have tried
phoning but it is incomprehensible.
Please advise me!
Gilly
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Jason
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