Yes I forgot to mention the cheque scams.
Thanks Sheila for adding that.
Great post, James. Can I just add the one I get a lot - email seeking to reserve rooms for a number of "delegates" or "Christian delegates". The wording is usually along the lines of seeking accommodation in your area for a conference, etc., etc., and asking me to reply "tabulating" the costs. They also usually ask if I will take payment by cheque. Most of us know what will happen next - cheque arrives for much more than the amount due, with a request to refund the excess payment.
I cannot re-iterate enough the comment about Western Union.
Hardly anyone in France has even heard of Western Union, so if this is ever, ever mentioned, cease contact with the person immediately.
thanks for the really useful summary of things to look out for
Great advice, thanks
If possible, review any suspicious emails on an iThing as 99% of the exploits spammers/hackers use are written to work on Windows.
As said before, always inspect the email address.
This will be of interest to members who have property interests in the UK
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Is this a scam, just arrived in my inbox? I donât know the number and am minded to ignore and delete it.
Nouveau â VÎżcαl du Fixe Orange
Bonjour ,
Vous avez un nouveau sms-vocal dâune durĂ©e de 27 secondes le 02 /05/ 2023 Ă 17:25.
Ce message a été déposé par le 07 76 69 60 57 .
Pour le lire cliquez sur, Ecoute .
Merci de votre confiance et de votre fidélité.
@David_Spardo -
Thatâs certainly similar to genuine messages from Orange. Does it come from an address that ends in orange.fr? Itâs so, itâs likely to be fine. Or you could log onto your Orange email account and check for emails.
Iâve done some digging and that number looks as if itâs associated with someone called The Dog Lady in Dereham in the uk. Here are her details.9
Now that DOES sound genuine!
Iâm interested in how you get to hear mobile Orange messages other than 888 from your mobile. Landline messages I can get logging onto Orange but not mobileâŠ
Sorry, Angela, I canât help as I no longer have an Orange mobile.
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No worries, Brian⊠just curious!
Strange, I do not know that woman although I did deliver a dog to a woman in Norfolk some years ago, but she certainly wasnât running a related business at the time.
It comes from âVotre Messagerie Vocale Du Fixe Orange, veronique.martin-lecroq@ac.normandie.frâ
a serv.mms@orange.fr
No other emails and no voice messages either. A mystery. Iâll leave it alone, if it is genuine and important enough no doubt they will get back to me.
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Thatâs the principle I work on. Having said that, Iâm staggered at the number of people who donât. The health professionals who contact me insist on using my mobile number even though a) I never heard it if it does ring and b) we have such a poor mobile signal around us that itâs a dreadful means of getting in contact. It doesnât matter how many times I ask them to use the landline, they donâtâŠ
Iâve removed my mobile from my âpersonal informationâ with various bodies and also advised them that I need âpaperâ contact⊠not online, not telephone⊠but a document I can read, consider/think about⊠wave under someone elseâs nose if I need to⊠
and a cold-caller gets polite, but short-shift⊠write me a letter and down goes the phoneâŠ
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The URL goes to https://messagerie-vocale-pro.jouwweb.nl - that would leave me slightly suspicious if itâs supposed to be on an Orange phone. Also spelling âvocalâ in odd characters screams âsomething wrongâ.
Leaving it alone seems the wise option.
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Exactly my thoughts, itâs gone. 