Bank scammers using genuine push notifications to trick their victims


`In app popup. "Are you on the phone with Chase? We need to check it's you on the phone to us. Let us know it's you and enter your passcode on the next screen. @ Not you? Your details are safe. Just tap 'No, it's not me' and we'll end the call."`

You receive a call on your phone. The polite call centre worker on the line asks for you by name, and gives the name of your bank. They say they're calling from your bank's fraud department. "Yeah, right!" You think. Obvious scam, isn't it? You tell the caller to do unmentionable things to a goat. […]

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Who can tell you what to do with your money?


A tiny lego Storm Trooper eats a chocolate coin.

There's an incredibly distressing story in the BBC about a vulnerable elderly man who was conned out of his life savings. Fraud victim gets surprise £153,000 refund despite rules BBC News In the story, the heartless bank refused to refund the fraud victim due to an absurd technicality - the money was sent to a […]

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How would you avoid getting "Jobfished"?


A tangled mosaic of video calls.

I've just finished watching the amazing documentary "Jobfished". It tells the story of a group of people who were conned into working for a "fake" company. You can read the news article - it's pretty depressing stuff. In the middle of a pandemic, people were asked to work for what looked like an established media […]

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And now it's… Springtime For Crypto


Still from the movie "The Producers".

You've heard of the AI Winter, right? The period where funding for AI dried up due to products failing to meet their hype. I think we're now in Springtime For Crypto0 - named after the musical "Springtime for Hitler" from movie The Producers - where scams abound. You should take a couple of hours to […]

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Is this a banking scam SMS?


Screenshot of text message from Lloyds bank. It addresses me by name and gives me the name of someone who is going to call me - plus their phone number.

Earlier this week, my holiday was interrupted by a sophisticated SMS scam. Rude! Let's take a look at it. Let's take a look at all the ways we can tell it is a scam. Firstly, and most obviously, I am not a customer of Lloyds Bank! But these scammers send out to multiple people hoping […]

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NDA Expired - let's spill the beans on a weird startup


Logo of an infinite cloud and lightning bolt.

Many moons ago, when I was very young and you were even younger... London was in full bloom of tech-startups. I was running my own consultancy. Dashing from business to business, trying to pick up work as an expert in this new-fangled "Mobile Internet" thing. Some of the companies I worked with were great. Some […]

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Questions to ask before launching a crypto-payments feature


A tiny lego Storm Trooper eats a chocolate coin.

Messaging app Signal is launching a payment service in the UK. This will allow users to send each other money cryptocurrency. Many people have written about why this is a daft idea. But they've mostly talked about why cryptocoins corrupt everything they touch. I want to talk about why this is a shitty idea from […]

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Stop this digital ownership madness. NFTs are bullshit. And the stupid makes me angry.


Fraud alert warning signs.

(A hastily written and grumpy post.) Another day, another Blockchain Bullshit project. Someone "claimed" one of my Tweets and added it to the Blockchain. I'm not particularly happy about that. Nor am I happy with the hoops I had to jump through to contact the company and remove my work. You can read the whole […]

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More Phishers On Twitter


A Twitter exchange. Virgin ask Dom for his address - which he gives. Then they ask for his full credit card details. He refuses.

My mate Dom was moaning to his ISP on Twitter. They sent him a private message so they could look into his account. Blimey! Thankfully, that was a pretty brazen and inept attempt at phishing. Anyone asking for all your card details like that should set the alarm bells ringing. Of course, phishers often target […]

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Crypto Investment Scammers calling from 02085044434


Fraud alert warning signs.

Another day, another phone scam. Yesterday, I received a call from +442085044434 by someone trying to get me to "invest" in BitCoin and other Cryptocurrencies. I managed to drag the call out for 6 minutes - have a listen: The caller admits the trading and advice isn't regulated. That they don't need permission to make […]

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