Incoming wire transfer - yeah, could do with $186,200

Yet another scam, though an old one. This very professional looking e-mail came into our inbox this morning. As things are, we could do with the money, in dollars, yen or anything else at all. We -well, Prospero- also has family in the US who might just have gone mad enough to ... no, they wouldn't, bless 'em. The giveaway, though, is that Zip file over on the right. Open that and worms, bacteria, viruses, rotting corpses, headaches, deadening phishes and all sorts just drop out... Basically, bin it!

Don't ignore this if you have Gmail

We got this yesterday. It should be obvious that it's a fake. To start with, Gmail wouldn't do anything like an 'update' like this, and second, look where it's coming from - ad.aruba.it??? If you click on 'Update Account', chances are you'll be bitten to death by viruses, trojans, and malware of all kinds, not to mention being phished for personal data. (Don't you love the jargon we use so loosely these days?)

Amazon scam warning

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Relax, it's not Amazon scamming, no, no. But you could get fooled into giving the scammers your details. Not me, we hear you say - but lots of people do, or it wouldn't be worth the trouble to set the scam up. Key scam words are always related to giving them your card number, expiration date, and other highly dangerous information. No proper company, particularly Amazon, would ask for such information in an e-mail: you get rejected automatically when you place your order online if there's a problem.

False Gibtelecom emails, source being sought

GIBRALTAR (GibChronicle) Spam alert as Gibtelecom customers receive emails, seemingly originating from Gibtelecom, asking for usernames/passwords in order to restore their webmail accounts. “If you do receive any of these emails please disregard them and remove them immediately,” said a Gibtelecom spokesperson. “These are scam emails which have not been sent out by Gibtelecom and we would never ask for your access credentials via any means,” they add. The company have also said they are currently investigating the source of the email with a view to ascertain its origins. Customers are asked to call +350 20052200 should they have questions regarding the validity of any email seemingly originating from Gibtelecom.

Warning: yet another phone scam

From Sheila on Jimena People on Facebook: "Just to let you know that I had a very weird phone call this afternoon from someone saying she was from 'Windows' and that a major virus had attacked my computer. Now, with my limited knowledge of computers, I figured there was something not quite right about this, so ended the call rather sharply. Be aware peoples!!!" Thanks, Sheila! Neither Microsoft nor Windows operate like this!

Yet another e-mail scam - watch out!

This one's a neat one. But the grammar fails miserably. Not to mention that we have never ever had an account at Three.co.uk or anything like it. But if we unzipped the zipped file attached, we are very likely to unleash a whole can of filthy worms in the shape of viruses, bacteria, malware, phishes, etc. etc. So what did we do? We binned it immediately and suggest you do the same if you get it. (click on 'warnings' on the labels cloud on the sidebar and see lots more)

15 charged with using Food Bank aid to feed elderly patients

One of the homes involved

They also allegedly used deceased pensioners' cards to obtain medicines and other items valued at over €9,000

CÁDIZ The Guardia Civil's Operation Pócima, which continues open, has so far resulted in charges against fifteen people involved in a fraudulent scheme run by several private residential homes for the elderly costing up to €1,800 a month per pensioner. Apparently, the patients were being fed with food obtained from Food Bank charities, from which a total of 140 tons were taken and distributed to various homes throughout the province. In addition, the fifteen are accused of using pensioners' discount and health cards belonging to 66 people who had died, which is how the scheme came to light.>>>

Beware of .zip files in email scams, viruses and malware

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These are just two examples of emails we have received recently. Both of them contain Zip files as attachments (files with .zip terminations). If you open them (that is, unzip them), they can, and often do, spread nasties all over your computer. Sometimes they come as part of a scam or con, sometimes they contain viruses and sometimes they are full of malware (short for malicious software: see Wikipedia). The rule is: if you don't know the sender, bin it. In these two cases, the PayPal one doesn't look at all like anything we have ever received from them, except the logo, which is very easy to copy, as is any logo. And we don't have a contract of any kind, nor any connection with Vodafone. COMING SOON: SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION.

Arrested for Gibraltar access scam

Ticket not needed

LA LÍNEA (Agencies) A man was arrested on Tuesday for taking €40 from the occupants of a British-registered car queueing to enter Gibraltar. According to the Local Police, who arrested J.L.M., 38, shortly after the incident, he asked the tourists for money to gain access to the Rock, and when he saw a couple of €20 bills in the passenger's hands, he snatched them and ran away. Local Police close by caught up with him and he taken to the National Police station, where the British tourists were filling in the complaints form, and were able to recover their cash. This kind of scam has been going on for many years, although less so now than before. If you know a tourist headed for Gibraltar, warn them that there is no charge for crossing the frontier. (You might want to warn them about 'irregularities' in the queue going in, though.)

Man arrested for posing as dentist and dental technician

Do, itifn't fuddy!

He had been practising for 3 years at his mother's home

LA LÍNEA The National Police recently arrested J.A.M.R., 50, for allegedly practising odontology without a licence. He is charged with swindling. In a press release, the police said that the man had been carrying out his illegal practice for about three years. After receiving a complaint regarding the false dentist and dental technician they investigated and found that his practice was established at his mother's residence, where a sister also lived. He was using a false name, too, and had diplomas and licences in that name hanging on the walls. However, both the Official College of Odontologists and that of  Dental Technicians told the investigators that there was nobody in either the real or the false name registered with them, so that was another reason for the man's arrest. After several weeks' watch, the police obtained a court order to check the premises, all of which led to the man's arrest.

Watch out for this (familiar) scam!

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CAMPO DE GIBRALTAR We received this in our e-mail. Jane Cahart has many friends in this area, and the chances are they will have received it, too. If experience is anything to go by (and we've had two local scams exactly like this), it is neither true nor valid and must be avoided. Her e-mail, and contact list, has been hijacked, so if you answer it, you will no doubt be contacted by the scammers, and asked to send money to 'Jane'. Someone we know was stung for a couple of thousand euros a couple of years ago in an identical scam, though the person who supposedly had lost everything was allegedly in London. In fact, she was in Jimena all along, and only found out about it after one of the victims -there were several - saw her the day after they lost their money. BEFORE LONG YOU WILL HAVE TO SUBSCRIBE TO SEE ARTICLES LIKE THIS. Subscription info coming soon.

You saw it here first - you hope!

SPAIN All of a sudden, your computer screen goes blank and is taken over by a warning from the Ministerio del Interior, with the badge of the Policía Nacional looming large - lately the Guardia Civil looms, too. You are accused of 'illegal activity', in your Internet surfing, e-mail and even in the files you thought were safe from prying eyes. You are told that, according to 'the laws of Spain' your computer has been blocked and for further information your IP address shows up, too (Wossat? Internal Protocol address). (Smell a rat yet?) Further down you are further charged with what looks like a maniac'a s**t list: paedophilia, zoophilia, child abuse, "video files have been found containing child pornography, violence" and more such niceties. Oh, and if that's not enough they mention that "your e-mails have contained spam with overtones of terrorism." (More than one rat here, right?) To unblock it, PLEASE BE AWARE THAT IN THE NEAR FUTURE YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO READ THE REST OF ITEMS SUCH AS THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE SUBSCRIBED. Subscription information will be available soon. (Oh, alright then, go on)>>>

New 'virus' steals with a €100 fine for illegal downloads

SPAIN The National Plice has issued a warning about an Internet virus that, disguised as the official Policía Nacional and Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD, data protection authority), closes down the computer and demands €100 for watching pornographic material or making illegal downloads of films and music. Payment would restore the computer. This is apparently a mutation of an already existing virus that was disguised as coming from the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE, copyright agency), which also blocked the computer and demanded €50 for downloading music illegally. (Prospero note: inflation attacks crime as well!) The National Police's Twitter site says that it never demands payment of fines over the Internet, and nor does the AEPD. It also asks for information from anyone who has been the victim of the scam.

Thirteen arrested in fake Euro 2012 team kit operation

The real thing
(Illustration only)

ALGECIRAS (Agencies) Thirteen people were arrested at Algeciras port recently, when the Treasury authorities and the Guardia Civil found almost 3,665 fake kits being introduced into the country. Most of them, 3,161, were forged replicas of the Spanish team's gear, mainly shirts and track suits; the rest were fake German kits. With a street value of some €380,480, all of the merchandise came from Morocco, and had the logo of a well known sports equipment manufacturer, who was contacted to confirm that these were falsifications, as t EU law requires. The Spanish authorities have been especially vigilant about these matters, starting a campaign in March that will continue well after the end of the EURO 2012 competition. They  also report that there has been a considerable increase in the number of arrests and operations aimed at stopping the fake merchandise reaching the market. (Prospero note: Does this mean the Moroccans know who will be in the final?)

Don't say you weren't warned...

Frankly, if you fall for this scam, Dear Reader, there is little hope for you in the 21st century. Look at the grammar, the spelling, the shoddiness ... 'nuff said, right? Whatever you do, DO NOT, CLICK ON ANY LINKS. Send the e-mail to the bin and then DELETE IT from there. By the way, it's always a good idea to empty your bin, trash, or whatever at least once a week - you never know what's lurking at the bottom of all that junk.

Scam alert in Tarifa and Algeciras

TARIFA & ALGECIRAS Aqualia, the water company for Tarifa, announced yesterday that there may well be a scam going on that is using the company's name. It said in a communiqué that it had detected several phone calls to homes to inform the occupants that there is a problem with the water quality, leading to a visit to the home, alleging the need to analyse it - the aim  is to sell products, apparently. The same tactic has appeared in the El Rinconcillo section of Algeciras. Apparently the scam consists of trying to sell a 'flow reduction' gadget to be fitted to taps in the house. The company says that they do not carry out any kind of trade in this way, and that use of their name could be a crime. The quality of the water, it adds, meets all requirements and there is no question of any problems.

To open or not to open

This e-mail came over the weekend - well written, good English, apparently genuine. Except that Google Mail, i.e. gmail, does not send these kind of messages. We didn't click on the link because common sense told us not to. So use your common sense and bin it.

WARNING: ARE THESE 'BOGUS PLUG-INS' BEING SOLD IN SPAIN?

(Photo: UK Trading Standards Authority)

(EXCLUSIVE) An article in The Guardian last year pointed out that the claims about these plug-in devices claim to save users anywhere between 15% and 40% on energy bills, but actually pose a risk of fire and electrocution. They were being sold over the phone by 'rogue fraudsters targeting older people', it said. (See similar reports on BBC, Moneywise, and the UK Trading Standards Authority (TSA), the source of the original warning.)  Various trading standards authorities in Britain had received complaints about them; one of these came to the conclusion that the companies involved in these scams are not actually located in the UK and that the call centres they use are based abroad and the appliances appear to be distributed by a number of individuals in the UK. Among the companies mentioned in the article are 1 Stop Marketing Solutions, ITC Development Corp, Power Saver, and Athico Ltd, but the fraudsters could be using other names as well, according to the TSA. There is no way of knowing whether these or any other such companies are operating in Spain, but there seems to be a surge of these so-called 'energy-saving' devices appearing in the English-speaking press in Spain, often in full page colour ads. We did come across a Spanish forum about Power Saver, though, with much the same derogatory comments as we mention below.>>>

Watch out for this scam!

We got this from one of our Gmail e-mail accounts. It looks good but we are pretty paranoid about these things so we went to Google Help, where we posted some of the content of the e-mail, plus the address it had come from, starting it with ''Is this a scam?" In less than forty seconds we had the following reply  Yes! This mail is scam. Mail from Google only comes from @google.com domains, e.g. googleemployee@google.com. How's that for the internet?! Anyway, if you get one -and in our experience Gmail is the best in protection, but not invulnerable, like everything else- trash it immediately!

Gibraltar phone scam warning

GIBRALTAR (Press release) The Royal Gibraltar Police has received information to the effect that a Credit Card scam is currently being carried out on members of the public in Gibraltar. The scam involves the victim receiving a telephone call from somebody claiming to be from Microsoft. The victim is then informed that there is a serious virus on their computer and that they have a programme which will remove it for a standard fee. The caller, who calls himself James Smith then asks for the credit card and personal details. Once they have this they are able to use it to make illegal purchases on the Internet.The RGP says it wishes to bring this to the notice of the public. Microsoft, a reputable company, would not call up and ask for credit card details in such a manner. The RGP urges members of the public not to give out any information regarding their credit cards to anyone who they do not know.The RGP also wishes to highlight the need to protect personal data relating to credit cards. Documents such as account statements and even transaction slips will contain card details, which the fraudsters can use to scam their victims. Therefore due care should be taken when disposing of these types of items to prevent them coming into the hands of criminals.If any member of the public requires advice on this matter they can contact the Financial Crime Unit of the RGP on telephone No. 20072954.