Computer Geek Jersey

16/03/2026

I saw this and it made me chuckle!

Send me a message with any issues you’re facing and we can book you in.

Happy Monday everyone.

25/09/2024

This sounds like amazing news for those unfortunate enough to be scammed out of money. I wonder if it will apply to Jersey though? I sincerely hope so!

Full link to the story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy94vz4zd7zo

04/04/2024

FACEBOOK SELLING SCAMS

There are a lot of scams on Facebook selling pages and marketplace. Most are recognisable, if you know what to look for. Some top tips to avoid being scammed:

• Check out the profile of the seller. If it's new, has very little content and almost zero friends, it's probably a fake profile.

• If the price is too good to be true, it probably is!

• If the seller has closed off commenting and insists on communication only via messenger, it's because they want you all to themselves.

• If they want a deposit to 'hold the item', NEVER EVER pay for one. Jersey is small. If they are genuine, you can be anywhere on the island within 30 minutes.

Stay safe everyone!

09/12/2023

Another creative scam doing the rounds…….

This one involves one of your contacts being hacked. The hackers quickly start sending out emails similar to this:

“Sorry to bother you, I'm unable to speak over the phone due to a serious throat pain caused by laryngitis.
can we catch up on email for a few minutes?

Many thanks”

If you respond then the hacker tells a tale of how their relative is gravely ill, and they want to cheer them up with a gift. They ask you to visit a local shop and purchase a gift card on their behalf and ‘promise to repay you’. Obviously you would never see the money again

These types of scams evolve over time but they all have a similar theme. If you get an email from someone in distress, then contact them in another way, or even better, visit them in person.

Stay safe and happy holidays to everyone

09/01/2023

****PLEASE SHARE****

Anatomy of a "Courier Collect" Scam.

Today I allowed myself to be the victim of a scam attempt in order to gather information to help others spot them, and hopefully prevent anyone else falling victim. This type of scam involves the criminal contacting you after finding an advert for an item you are selling. After exchanging pleasantries, they attempt to get you to purchase ‘insurance’ which they tell you will be refunded. The way this play out is as follows:

1. You advertise an item for sale.
2. The criminal contacts you and asks if it is still available to buy.
3. After your confirmation, the criminal gives a story that they would like to purchase the item, but due to other commitments they cannot collect themselves, and instead, will send a courier who will bring cash and pay for the item on collection.
4. After you have agreed to the sale, and the cash on collection, the criminal adds that the ‘insurance’ fee has to be paid by you, and they will add the fee to the money the courier will deliver when collecting your item you are selling.
5. After obtaining your address and email, you receive an email purporting to be from a courier (in my case ‘DPD’), with a payment link enabling you to pay the ‘insurance’ fee.
6. If you pay the fee, then you lose the payment because the link payment goes into the account of the criminal.

The attached photos are from the conversation of my experience today, when I was contacted by a Facebook profile using the name ‘Fabrice Duah’ (photo attached). The photos used to create the profile actually belong to an American called Joe Cross, but that’s a different subject.
Even when I confronted the criminal, they still continued the script they follow until they dropped off the conversation. I reported the profile to Facebook and hopefully it will get banned.
Other than the information I managed to get from the criminal, the next best thing that came out of this was wasting an hour of their time that they couldn’t use on another victim. Please be careful online, and pass this on to anyone who may be susceptible to conmen.

16/10/2022

NEW SCAM ALERT - VERY IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ AND SHARE

This is a long read, so please bear with me and read it until the end. It could save you, a family member or friend a lot of money.

This morning I received an email from PayPal regarding an estimate totalling £650.00 which was to be taken out of my account in the next few days. A few things within the email set my 'spidey senses' tingling:

• The addressee name on the email was wrong – my name isn’t ‘killo Carter’
• The email address they sent it to was incorrect – I don’t have a PayPal account at the address they sent the email to.

However, I decided to examine the email header information to see where it had originated, and saw that it did indeed come from the PayPal email servers. I then clicked the big blue button ‘View Your Estimate’, expecting it to take me to a bogus website, but I was very surprised to see that it took me to the PayPal website. I checked the website security certificate to ensure it was legitimate and indeed it was.

That got me perplexed; on one hand the email and addressee information was incorrect, but on the flip side, the email and links both had legitimate sources at PayPal. Hmmmmm! What to do……?

I then called the freephone number on the email, and joined the wait queue to speak to customer services. The first lady I spoke to had an awful crackle on the line so I called back and got a better quality connection to the second person. He took me through two security questions (the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS on my account I had chosen from a list of 12 options for each question), and even sent me an SMS message to my phone which originated from PayPal.

I don’t know why, but at that point I hung up the phone. Thank goodness I did!

I then logged into my PayPal account online and through the help centre, I contacted PayPal on the number 0203 901 7000, and spoke to a customer services agent who was aware of this particular email doing the rounds. I asked him to explain how both the email and the website link were both legitimate in a scam/phishing email. He told me that a team of scammers had found a way to exploit a system at PayPal, but they were fully aware of the situation and were working to close the flaw that was being exploited in their systems.

I then changed my password and memorable information questions on the PayPal website to be safe.

PLEASE PLEASE pass this on and if you get a similar email, either delete it, or forward it onto PayPal using the instructions at this site: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/phishing

30/06/2022

Stock clearance of laptop batteries - mainly MacBook Pro Retina models from 2011 - 2015, with or without fitting service. Some HP, Dell and Acer models too.

PM with your model and if I have it in stock, I can give you a price for the battery, and fitting too if required.

21/10/2021

SCAM ALERT:

There were at least two local cases of fraud over the weekend of the 16/17 October involving monies approaching £20,000. The scammers call unwitting victims and claim to be from the Amazon Prime team wanting to refund you for a mistaken Amazon Prime membership they had deducted from your bank account, totalling £79.99.

After asking for bank account details to refund the money to, they claim they have made a grave error and have refunded £7,999.00 instead. The scammers then proceed with a sob story, telling you that they will lose their job unless you reverse the transaction, offering to help you do it via remote support.

Once they connect remotely to your computer, they ask you to log into your internet banking, and actually show you a FAKE website showing 'your' account with the credit of £7,999.00.

All very believable.

Until they then proceed to empty your account and transfer all your money to their bank.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! Tell your family, friends, colleagues about this to avoid heartache. The lady I have been dealing with hasn't stopped crying since Saturday......

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc will NEVER call you to discuss matters like these, and certainly would NEVER EVER ask you to allow them to remotely connect to your computer so they can facilitate access to your bank account.

Do a good deed and pass this on, share it, discuss it. Let's beat the scammers together!

23/03/2020

I got this card last week from Trevor. What a lovely gesture. Stay safe everyone and stay home if you can.

03/03/2020

If you only watch one video today, let it be this one. For the inexperienced and perhaps novice computer user, this could save you a fortune and a lot of heartache in the long run.

The man who hacked into a criminal call centre to expose scammers at work.