Vbg Fake Sms Sender V8 0 Portable.zip
Kathryn Garivay
A popular tactic of criminals is the "fake order" scam. The way it works is that you get a message, usually in email or text, that appears to be a routine confirmation for an order. Of course, you never ordered whatever product or service it's confirming.
The message looks common enough, and it says that money will be charged to your credit card or withdrawn from your bank account for the product or service. Then it casually offers instructions on how you can cancel the order if you want to.
In order to cancel the fake order, you'll either have to click a link or call them on the telephone. Either way, the ultimate goal of the scammers is to get you to give them some personal information. They'll claim it's for the purposes of canceling the fake order. They'll want your name, address, phone number, and very likely your credit card or banking information. If you protest, they'll insist they only need that information to confirm your identity.
Often there's another part to the scam. The scammers may ask you to download a file, usually a Microsoft Word or Excel file, enter your information into the file, and send that file back to them to cancel the order.
If you're on the phone with the scammer they will insist that enabling the embedded active content is perfectly safe, and entirely necessary, to complete the cancellation. It's neither of those things. In fact, it's a malicious macro designed to steal or damage your personal data, install ransomware on your machine, gain access to your machine, or use your device to attack other people.
The sender's email address is often the first clue that the message is a fake. In this example they haven't even tried to make it look real. If Norton were sending you a real confirmation message it wouldn't come from a dodgy-looking Gmail address. It would come from one of their real domains, perhaps @nortonlifelock.com.
If they don't know your name, they can't withdraw any funds from your bank account. A legitimate company would insert your name into a confirmation message. It's easy for them to do with modern billing systems.
Scammers often insert the logo of the organization they're trying to impersonate into the message to make it seem more legitimate. In this case they've used a pretty poor imitation of Norton's logo. They spelled "Norton" correctly and seem to have a yellow color that is pretty close to Norton's, but otherwise it's clearly not Norton's real logo.
If you get a message with a suspicious-looking logo and you want to see if it's real or not, open your web browser to a new tab and do an internet search for the organization the message claims to be from. You should quickly find examples of their actual logo you can compare it to.
Aside from the date, the entire message is awkwardly worded and formatted. Why is "Subscription" used as a proper noun, and why is it a different color? Phrases like "...in your bank account statement" or "auto-paid" don't seem like how a professional company would write a customer message. That doesn't mean real messages never have errors, but this much poor writing is suspicious.
Scammers usually try to create some false urgency in order to get you to react quickly and emotionally before you've had time to think about it, or to ask a trusted advisor for their opinion. Notice in this example that it claims that "$499.99" will be withdrawn from your bank account TODAY. Then, curiously, says you need to contact them "within 48 hours", or "right away."
If you still want to confirm if the message is real, open your web browser to a new tab and do an internet search for the organization the message claims to be from. Go to their official website and contact them at their published phone number.
If you have an account with them, open your web browser to a new tab and use your own saved favorite or internet search to sign into your account. Then you should be able to see if this mysterious order actually appears in their system.
What the photo shows is that the envelope has the 'correct' tracking number, a very fake return address and fabricated shipper's name, and of course this other bloke's recipient address. Not to mention that a generator couldn't fit into an envelope, but I digress. My biggest concern, however, after reading through these forums, is that this scam, developed some years ago evidently, is so "perfect" that eBay will often side with the seller in a claim since the tracking number shows the item as 'delivered'. Am I doomed here? It has been quite a doozy even getting a claim started, considering the paucity of relevant "drop down" options here in the claims center, in conjunction with the fact that all of the eBay call centers are apparently closed on quarantine.
Based on your case, I'd let go of the fact that it was shipped to the wrong address and focus on the poor quality of the item -- hopefully, that kind person still has it. Get the item from the person and file a SNAD -- I think it's your best bet as it's much easier to prove to eBay that you're in the right rather than the shipping because the seller has fake evidence.
You can then file an item not as described claim via the the resolution center at the bottom of the page. Then when prompted you will need to escalate it to ebay and have them step in. .. wait for ebay to tell you to return the item, then you just package up the whole envelope and whatever was inside and ship it back following the directions.
Am I doomed here? It has been quite a doozy even getting a claim started, considering the paucity of relevant "drop down" options here in the claims center, in conjunction with the fact that all of the eBay call centers are apparently closed on quarantine.
If you don't automatically get a return label immediately, the next day after 3 business days, click ask eBay to step in, affix the return label, and get your refund ... even if the return address is fake and not delivered.
When you file a dispute it should be for Item not as described. NOT item not received (INR). Most people lose the disputes if they file an INR because there is tracking showing a delivery. eBay's automated system only sees tracking information showing "delivered". It does not know it was delivered to a false address. When filing the dispute you can add photos of the envelope, showing the pamphlets and the shipping label showing the tracking number and address.
"On a related note, in looking at the seller's information today, he's of late been racking up negative feedback, and has changed his feedback profile to "private" (why is that even allowed?)"
What you are leaving out is that those "high priced tools" were being sold for very good to Too good to be true prices. That in and of itself should be a warning, and those that listen to their inner voice do not fall for the scams.
One the above steps are completed, the person makes a purchase or two, to reinstate the unused eBay account's feedback number, which reverts to (0) after a year of no activity. It also verifies the address and bank information used with PayPal.
Once enough sales are made, and before the negative feedback starts really rolling in, they can clean out the Paypal account, by transferring all but the seed money from it. Then almost empty their bank account, created with stolen info and disappear.
If they invested say $3-5K into the scam, but walked away with $40K, that's a pretty good return on the investment, and they may already be setting up a new scam account. Like the title of the old baseball movie "It Happens Every Spring". actually all year round, but especially in the spring to the scammers come out of the wood work.
So I went ahead and filed a case with PayPal, but I am not sure this will ultimately be of any use in a case such as this, as the 'dispute' notes that the seller will have until the end of April to respond (after which they'll surely be long gone, cash in hand). It would seem that in this type of situation, involving outright fraud, such a slow approach is not likely to yield the desired result.
As I have been unable to find any return options listing "significantly not as described" as a choice, I went ahead and took another poster's advice, above, and have attempted to commence a return, choosing "wrong item sent," and attached photos of the fraudulent package, etc. I do have some concerns about the viability of a 'return' (does the seller have to actually receive the item in question before the money is refunded?), especially since the return address on the envelope is very, very bogus (it lists "OSWALD" as the sender's name, and the address routes to the 'Sephardi Association' of the World Zionist Organization).
In any case, upon attempts to submit that claim, I've been repeatedly met with the notice attached below. Any ideas? How many days do I have to resolve this before the clock runs out? I am still unable to get through to a real person at eBay (understandably, due to COVID), but I worry that this fraud may succeed for that reason. On another, worrying note, the fraudulent seller has managed, it seems, to convince at least one other buyer who recently left negative feedback to retract it, or has had it removed in some other way, though the actual details of the seller's feedback still remain set to 'private.' Perhaps he's convinced them that there was merely a mix up and that the item is on its way...
Ebay's bots automatically rejected your first dispute because you listed the reason as item not received because the tracking number showed the "package" was delivered rather NAD not as described or received wrong item when you first created the dispute.
Many people have said you can't change/add a different dispute once you initiated the first one but there have been many postings of late from buyers that when you call Ebay, they WILL change the return reason. (I sure wish for buyers, Ebay on the dispute site will add a sentence explaining what the difference is to them of not received or not as described and that any purchases with a tracking number showing delivery to SOMEWHERE would NOT be considered as not received.)
7fc3f7cf58