Saturday, October 01, 2022

Beware Awesome, Fabulous

At the risk of appearing to pass myself off as someone who would teach a grandmother how to suck eggs, 

and also of straying into scam territory, I should like to mention a recent rash of emails that call themselves "Equifax-Alert" or "Experian-Alert", and appear to invite the happy recipient to bask in the unexpected (or not) news that his/her/their credit score is awesome, fabulous, and record-settingly high.

There is another saying that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. (Which probably goes back to the proverb, All That Glitters --or "Glisters"-- Is Not Gold.)

The credit reporting agencies do email subscribers/ account holders, but only once a month, and they do not use email addresses such as "Ella at flavorfulmoon dot com" or "Katty at brightandblossom dot com" or "Holly at chaiflow dot com.  

I have slightly changed the feminine names. The websites appear to exist and are flagged by browsers as potential trick sites.

Always hover your cursor over the "From" text. 

Be particularly wary of emails coming from dot online.de (a German domain), or dot online.uk (British), or dot xyz (sleaze, reputedly).

The class action lawyers of Morgan $ Morgan (Freudian slip not corrected) have a helpful explanation of the alleged problems with credit-reporting-agencies ability to retain data. It is scary reading.

https://www.forthepeople.com/blog/experian-fails-security-now-hackers-can-change-your-email-address/ 

The Equifax site offers a helpful explanation of phishing and smishing (that is like phishing, only it affects people who indulge in text messages.)

https://www.equifax.com/personal/education/identity-theft/what-is-phishing-what-is-smishing/

Legal bloggers  Jeanne L. Seewald  and John J. Cunniff for the lawfirm Hahn Loeser and Parks LLP discuss an expensive scam that tends to come through the postal service, which looks official, and targets small businesspeople who own trademarks.

https://www.hahnlaw.com/insights/beware-trademark-solicitations/

It is well worth reading, if you own a trademark, but the bottom line is that a legitimate invoice ought to be provided through your trademark attorney's office.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

No comments:

Post a Comment