An Oz Central Public Service Announcement For The World

This was received via email, I'm not sure about the validity of the story itself but the warning is sound.

----------------------------------------

ALL FAMILY MEMBERS SHOULD READ THIS ESPECIALLY CHILDREN!

These crooks are getting very good!

A lady has changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile telephone after her handbag was stolen.

Her handbag, which contained her mobile telephone, credit card, purse, etc., was stolen. Twenty minutes later she called her husband, from a pay telephone telling him what had happened.
Her husband said, 'I have just received your text asking about our pin number and I have replied a little while ago.'

When they rushed down to the bank, the staff told them all the money was already withdrawn.

The thief had actually used the stolen mobile telephone to text her husband in the contact list and got hold of the pin number.

Within twenty minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.

Moral of the lesson:

Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list.

Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Mum, Dad, etc.,

And very importantly, when sensitive information is being asked for through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.

Also, when you are being text by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them.

If you do not reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON.

I never thought about THAT!

As of right now, do you have 'home' named on the mobile?

----------------------------------------

Tell The World

The Scams Keep Coming

Facebook hit by Nigerian 419 scam

By John E. Dunn , TechWorld , 11/10/2008

Scammers are trawling Facebook for victims using a convincing twist on the notorious 'Nigerian 419' scam.

Normally, 419 scams are easy to spot and involve e-mail requests for money from supposedly rich individuals in countries such as Nigeria, from which the fraud gets its name. The latest Facebook attack is much craftier, however, because it hijacks the identities of real people known to Facebook members, asking for money under an apparently plausible guise.

An Australian news site reports that one Google Australian employee who was contacted using the social networking site by a person known to her, asking for $500 dollars to allow him to return home from Lagos, Nigeria, where he claimed to be stranded.

She became suspicious that the contact was bogus only after noting subtle irregularities in the fraudster's use of Australian English. "After chatting further, words such as "cell" instead of "mobile phone" tipped Wells off that she was not talking to her friend but someone who had taken over his account," the report said.

"Many Facebook users don't even know how many friends they have on the site, let alone what they are all doing and where they are, and this is providing the scammers with a new vector of attack" said Graham Cluley of Sophos, the company that unearthed this particular scam. (Read Full Story Here)

People will often freely give out their own personal details and those of their friends and family in an enviroment where it would be better not to. The solution here is stop giving out that information. Then scammers won't have as much information to successfully carry out their scams.

Unfortunately when it comes to scams many people think that somehow they won't become a victim even though the all warning signs are there. They'll often come up with some self serving logic to make themselves think that doing the wrong thing is OK when they do it and when they come across a scam it's not a scam, they'll be fine. This particular scam is a little more clever than most scams but the common warning for the Internet is beware of anyone asking you for money.