Worldpay CARD Transaction Confirmation Spam/Virus

June 25th, 2009

This afternoon I received an email with the subject “Worldpay CARD transaction Confirmation“, which instantly caught my attention because I use Worldpay while paying off one of my credit cards, and for a moment I wondered if I had done it and forgotten about it.

The email content was as follows:

Thank you!

Your transaction has been processed by WorldPay, on behalf of Amazon Inc.

The invoice file is attached to this message.
This is not a tax receipt.
We processed your payment.
Amazon Inc has received your order,
and will inform you about delivery.
Sincerely,
Amazon Team

This confirmation only indicates that your transaction has been processed successfully.
It does not indicate that your order has been accepted.
It is the responsibility of Amazon Inc to confirm that your order has been accepted, and to deliver any goods or services you have ordered.

All very convincing and official-looking, but Amazon doesn’t use Worldpay, and the email was not sent to amazon@<my email domain> – it was sent to my office address which is only used for, well, office stuff.

The email attachment is a simple HTML file so it is not picked up as anything dodgy, but it comprises a single META REFRESH line directing you to an executable file hosted elsewhere, so don’t open the attachment.

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Twitter Porn Fail

June 15th, 2009

One of the major irritants on Twitter is the sheer number of spammy, camwhore types that follow random people in the hope they’ll visit the profile paqge and click the link to whatever adult service it is they’re offering.  Many of these tend to be a single organisation with a referral scheme set up, and everyone who pays to view more pics of the girl on offer ends up putting money in their pocket.

Twitter Porn Fail

"Kelly Ann"

Occasionally you get a genuine, bona-fide standalone female doing the same thing – sometimes you can tell, other times you can’t.  Often it’s the lack of technical knowledge that gives the game away, with links not working, pages down and so forth.

Even rarer, you get something like kellyann18 offering a small selection of pictures to entice people, with the promise of the real goods later.  Unfortunately, Kelly Ann (or the webmaster behind it) doesn’t understand that if you give your images sequential number filenames, it’s pretty easy to guess the URLs for the entire set.

FYI, there’s 20 in the series.  Numbered 1 to… yeah.

Update:
There’s also this page on the same site – not sure about the legitamacy of that one.  I posted the link to Twitter and the images were unlocked in just a few minutes, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Twitter users love a headline like “My girlfriend cheated on me. It’s PAYBACK time.”

Posted in Internet, Spam & Viruses, Websites | 2 Comments »

Virgin Media Broadband Pricing

June 9th, 2009

With the credit crunch in full swing, it’s only natural that people will look for ways to save money.  Right now every little helps, and it was with this thought in mind that I decided to investigate cutting my broadband package to a lower tier.

As it transpires, Virgin Media dropped the basic (4Mb?) package and so I was on the lowest price anyway, but while investigating package options I discovered that the same package was available for new broadband customers – after an introductory discount – for £20 a month.

Whereas I, as a loyal customer of roughly seven years, have the priviledge of paying £25 a month.

I called Virgin and asked about this, and the basic response is that, yes the same package is available cheaper, but because it was £25 when I changed to it (I was on a higher tarrif), that’s what I’m stuck with paying.

Since they won’t drop the price for me, and I can’t simply cancel and rejoin (apparently I have to be a non-customer for 6 months) I’ve decided to cancel the package altogether.  My housemate will add broadband to their existing package and I’ll pay the difference, saving me £10 a month – fair recompense for the £5 a month Virgin Media have been overcharging me.

So Virgin are going to lose more money in the long run.  They’ve lost me as a customer and income from this household will be £10 a month lower than before while they supply the exact same services.

Check your bills and see what’s available via the Virgin Media website.  If you can cancel and re-open using another member of the household, you may be able to save yourself some cash.

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