eBay Scam

A while ago I saw this ad on DealFish where somebody advertised a Toyota Run X for R56,000. The reason I reported it to DealFish was because the person wanted you to pay via eBay and pretend to be from Cape Town. The advertiser’s name is “Karl Kixmiller” but I bet you that it is not his real name.

Today I received an email from a regular reader asking me if I would buy a car via eBay and he told me about this Run X bargain.

Luckily he has not paid the deposit yet, so I stopped him.

Now there is a couple of things to look out here and if you just use your head you can prevent being caught in this scam:

1. If it sounds to good to be true it normally is. Think for yourself, if a Toyota Run X normally sells for more than R100,000 why would somebody wanna sell it for half the price.
2. Why would somebody in who stays in Cape Town request you to pay the deposit using eBay and not directly to a South African bank account
3. Why would you wanna pay a deposit on a car you never saw before?

What this person does is to take your deposit and then disappear.

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FireFox Phishing Warning

Phishing is one of those big words which came with the Internet.

What this big word means is that there are people who setup dummy web sites which look exactly like the bank’s web site. They then send you an email, pretending to be the bank, in which they ask you to confirm your login details. When you enter your details on the site they get hold of your login details, then log into your bank account and steal your money. They even do this with the SARS web site where they say you received a tax refund and they need your banking login details to pay the money to your account.

Personally I think the banks should be burned for the fact that the phishers  manage to steal your money because with the new law you are not supposed to be able to open a bank account without identification and proof of address. Before those people can steal your money they must set themselves up as a beneficiary in your account and transfer the money to their account. The bank can see to which account the money has been transferred, thus the banks are supposed to know who the criminals are.

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Credit Card Scam

I received this via email today. Please read it, take note and be careful what details you give over the phone.

New Credit Card Scam

This one is pretty slick since they provide YOU with all the information, except the one piece they want.

Note, the callers do not ask for your card number; they already have it. This information is worth reading. By understanding how the VISA &  MasterCard Telephone Credit Card Scam works, you’ll be better prepared to protect yourself.

One of our employees was called on Wednesday from ‘VISA’, and I was called on Thursday from ‘MasterCard’.

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I received many emails from people who try and recruit me for “The Huge Pre-Launch”

I also received many emails from readers who would like to know if it is a scam or not.

Of course I could not resist and went to have a look at http://www.hugeprelaunch.com

I was amazed to find…

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There are many ways to make money on the Internet. Some are scams, some are bad and some are real good opportunities.

I do find that a lot of people prefer to look for a “job” they can do online like “data entry” or “online surveys”. I think this is because people are still holding on the the stability of the only thing they know, their job.

The sad fact is that most “data entry”  ventures are SCAMS. What makes this so sad is that is mostly people who desperately need money who are conned out of their last couple of rands or dollars.

But why is it bad?……
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Article by Fin24.com on 2009/07/14

Johannesburg – A R7m scam, allegedly perpetrated by a Vodacom employee, represented a world first in breaching SMS-based (short message signal-based) banking integrity, top security firm Kaspersky Lab has said.

On Monday, a Vodacom technician appeared in the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court on charges of fraud and contravening the Electronic Communications Act.

According to The Citizen newspaper, the Vodacom employee, Mbokodana Christopher Khoza, is at the centre of the grift involving R7m. Nedbank, Absa, Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank, and KwaZulu-Natal’s Ithala Bank number among banks affected. Read more »

This week friends of ours were caught with a scam where somebody emailed them a notice telling them that ABSA is upgrading their system and they wanted them to enter their username and pin on the “bank’s” web site. The short of the long story is that these scamsters emptied all 8 their bank accounts.

My question is that if these people transfered the money to another account, the bank are supposed to know who’s account that is. Nowadays you have to give all your FICA documents and whatever documents just to open an account. How the hell is it possible that these scamsters can transfer the money to another account without the bank knowing who’s account it is?

I cannot believe that there are still people who fall for this. I thought that by now everybody will know that this is a scam. Little did I know that some of my friends were caught that way.

One of the emails most frequently used has a subject line which make the recipiet believe that the email is intended to fight Internet crime. Here is an example of such an email. If you receive an email like this delete it, DO NOT respond to it:

Subject:  NOTIFICATION OF PHISHING ATTACKS
Dear ABSA Customers ,

ABSA customers have encountered countless issues with incessant phishing attacks on our numerous account holders, hence we are taking greater security measures to curb and curtail this attacks… Read more »

Although I added this under the scam section I really do not know what to make of this yet and I hope that some of our readers would be able to tell us what they think.

I received this email below. My concern is that as far as I can remember somebody did try to implement “Internet over powerlines”  some years ago and the problem they had was that the lines belong to Eskom and if they want to transfer data on the lines they must pay rent to Eskom.

If you read the email below you will see that this is more or less what these guys want to do. Are there anybody out there who knows if this would be permitted in SA? Seems like they are already taking money from South Africans for registration fees and I am not quite sure if this would be legal in South Africa?

Anybody’s input would be much appreciated…… Read more »

On 5 May 2009 I received a SMS saying:

MTN is giving away: thousands of handsets, 87 Mini PC’s, 14 Toyota Fortuner, and 1 House Bond of R1.000.000! Text “15″ to 37187 (R7.5) and start winning…

That is all

So I thought “GREAT” , R7.50 is not that much and replied.

BUT then……
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Is hbiz.co.za a scam?

The questions has been asked a couple of times by some of my readers. I also saw on another blog and in the forum of a friend of mine that there are concerns about this “business”

I checked it out.

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This is indeed a sad report to write.
The Passive Incomes Magazine had huge potential to become the best MLM concept in South Africa. It made so much sense and the product was brilliant.

Unfortunately the management is not all it should be and it seems as if they run into financial difficulties.

They have not paid commission for end January and end February 2009 and we also have not received our product (the magazine). They also do not communicate with clients and when I inquired about the commission I have not Read more »