New scam(s)

[simonineaston]

Facebook's infamous shadow accounts.

What are they?

[mercalia]

Not new - but ask yourself this question: If Facebook paid $19billion - that's BILLION in case you missed it... for WhatsApp and it's "free to use", why did Facebook buy it - what made it worth billions of dollars to the new owners?? It's not immediately onbvious, is it? Or to rephrase the Q. there's 2 players I know of...
One - Facebook - we'll call them The Owners
Two - The Users - that may include a few of us.
So, if The Owners make money out of WhatsApp (and why else would they want it?), how exactly do they manage it? There's only one other player (no advertisers) and that's The Users. What is it about us, as indiviuduals, that's worth paying nineteen billion dollars to get hold of?

I think there's a clue in Whatsapp's terms and conditions. They specify that the phone app must have access to the phone's contact list, and that the list will be regularly copied to the owners' servers to check which of the contacts are also using Whatsapp, to make it easy to connect. They do not specify whether the uploaded contact list will be used for any other purpose, such as augmenting Facebook's list of connections or adding to Facebook's infamous shadow accounts.

I was persuaded by a friend to install Whatsapp, and there's no denying it's a good service. I wasn't about to ask everyone in my 'phone's list for permission to pass on their number, so I installed it in a virtual machine with a very short contact list.

wow thats me never use it. people need to the book of last year "The Surveillance Society" where thse issues are discussed at length - You data is the new capitalism

[simonineaston]

Or, as the current handy phrase has it, 'If the app is FREE, it's 'cos you're The Product!"...

[Pastychomper]

Facebook's infamous shadow accounts.

What are they?

Possibly I should have called them "shadow profiles". They are hidden accounts generated by Facebook from information gleaned from its users about their acquaintances, including those who don't have FB accounts themselves.

This article has an explanation.

[kwackers]

I got an email on Friday from a company called "Watermelon Research" which claimed I'd won a £500 Amazon gift voucher for a Barclaycard Survey I'd filled in.

Now "Watermelon" looks like a genuine research company and I vaguely remember filling in a Barclaycard survey which may have come because I registered for one of their services and the email knew both my name and (obviously) my email address and simply required that I reply accepting the 'prize' and that I was happy if it was registered to my email address...

£500 seems a lot though, usually it's a £10 M&S gift voucher or something.

Scam or not?
Since they already knew who I was, had my email address and looked genuine there seemed no harm in replying so we'll see...

(I've had a quick google but can't find any evidence either way).

[kwackers]

OK so I got a £500 Amazon voucher.
If it's a scam they're trying really hard.
In the meantime got some shopping to do...

[mercalia]

OK so I got a £500 Amazon voucher.
If it's a scam they're trying really hard.
In the meantime got some shopping to do...

you sure the voucher not bugged? will take a copy of your finger prints and phone home?

[kwackers]

OK so I got a £500 Amazon voucher.
If it's a scam they're trying really hard.
In the meantime got some shopping to do...

you sure the voucher not bugged? will take a copy of your finger prints and phone home?

Be a neat trick.

Perhaps it's a larf - turns out they buy the voucher with my own credit card using details I accidentally filled in during the survey.

[mercalia]

TV Licensing scam

click to enlarge

[[XAP]Bob]

That's quite nicely put together - they've made a deliberate error (putting the value in place of the licence number) that both looks plausible and stops them having to get it right....

[DaveReading]

and stops them having to get it right....

The reason for that being ... ?

[mercalia]

and stops them having to get it right....

The reason for that being ... ?

they dont know my ( non existant) licence number, so they have to fudge not knowing?

[[XAP]Bob]

Not new - but ask yourself this question: If Facebook paid $19billion - that's BILLION in case you missed it... for WhatsApp and it's "free to use", why did Facebook buy it - what made it worth billions of dollars to the new owners?? It's not immediately onbvious, is it? Or to rephrase the Q. there's 2 players I know of...
One - Facebook - we'll call them The Owners
Two - The Users - that may include a few of us.
So, if The Owners make money out of WhatsApp (and why else would they want it?), how exactly do they manage it? There's only one other player (no advertisers) and that's The Users. What is it about us, as indiviuduals, that's worth paying nineteen billion dollars to get hold of?

I think there's a clue in Whatsapp's terms and conditions. They specify that the phone app must have access to the phone's contact list, and that the list will be regularly copied to the owners' servers to check which of the contacts are also using Whatsapp, to make it easy to connect. They do not specify whether the uploaded contact list will be used for any other purpose, such as augmenting Facebook's list of connections or adding to Facebook's infamous shadow accounts.

I was persuaded by a friend to install Whatsapp, and there's no denying it's a good service. I wasn't about to ask everyone in my 'phone's list for permission to pass on their number, so I installed it in a virtual machine with a very short contact list.

Erm - mine doesn't have access to contacts.
Never has had either.

But that doesn't matter, they can still associate it with me, and that meta data gives them more information to sell to advertisers. Just because the advertising doesn't happen in the app, doesn't mean the data isn't monetised.

If you aren't paying for the product then you are the product.

[Elizabeth_S]

I had an extremely convincing Plusnet one about my 'new account'. It followed a genuine Plusnet email and the only difference was there was no link to the help desk at the top and it had a link to make my first payment. As I never, ever click on links in emails to make payments (but go the long way round via the website), I was never going to click it anyway, and my contract is running and lasts for 2 years so I knew it was wrong. I spoke to them all the same and they said there is one doing the rounds and they are on to it.

[mercalia]

here is a scam just got claiming to be the United Nations having foiled some scammers

FROM MR.Fitzroy Joseph
UNITED NATION OFFICE ISTANBUL TURKEY
Level 16, Integra Tower, The Intermark, 348, Jalan Tun Razak,
34000 Istanbul Turkey.
Email: feridun_unofficeturkey@yahoo.com

Good day my friend

I am Mr.Fitzroy Joseph United Nation representative in Turkey.

In the course of a recently concluded 2016 investigations and
subsequent arrests of suspected fraudsters and scammers in Africa
rejoin, in collaboration of the present governments of Nigeria, Ghana,
Cote D'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, South Africa ,India, European Members
State,USA, ETC. the UN security operatives have so far arrested and
prosecuted over 300 government and banking officials and arrest is
still going on.

So far, the UN security operative has also recovered about $5.1
Billion from both cash in accounts and properties and assets
confiscated. It is from the address books of the arrested officials
that your email address was recovered.

Right now, the United Nations (UN) and their Africa Union (AU)
counterpart is paying a $5,000,000.00 (US$5Million) compensation to
those whose emails addresses and other personal data are recovered
from these arrested officials, and also paying full contract or
inheritance and wining amounts to those with provable information
qualifying them as genuine contractors and beneficiaries of funds in
the affected African countries and European Nations.

Which Category do you fall? Have you been getting emails for payments
from these countries? OR are you a legitimate contractor and fund
beneficiary in any of the affected African country? Please, indicate
clearly as you get back to me for proper guidelines and details on how
to receive this compensation OR your full payment.

Waiting to hear from you

Mr.Fitzroy Joseph
UNITED NATION OFFICE ISTANBUL TURKEY