Technology Feed Lab

BBC UK lotodraw scam SMS on mobile

May 18, 2012 by TechGeek Leave a Comment

Here is the latest SMS received on the mobile related to BBC UK lotodraw.

“BBC UK!:Your MobileNo has Won £500,000 in BBC.Int.LotoDraw, To ClaimPrize Send FullDetail:Name,Add,Country,Sex,Age,Occ,Email,MobileNo.to bbcmobile2012@live.co.uk“

Last year, we blogged about fake scam promotion on cell phones which lure victim to provide their sensitive and personal information. Mobile users are increasing day by day and that’s where scammers are using mobile platform to promote their fake scams. Many times, people receives fake mobile SMS from scammers mainly related to lottery, money scam etc.

Most of the time SMS contains scammers email address and asks for user’s personal information. The victim who fails to understand motive behind SMS sends his/her personal information to scammer and may loose his/her personal identity or often leads to paying the money to scammer.

Remember to ignore such SMS and do not provide your any personal information over the mobile or email.

Filed under Mobile Tagged with BBC lottery, mobile fake SMS, scam

iPhone 4s Sim Failure and Invalid Sim errors and solution

December 29, 2011 by TechGeek Leave a Comment

Last month, I was using Vodafone 3G micro sim card in my iPhone and everything was working fine for a day or two. Suddenly, I was shocked to see “Sim Failure” message with “Invalid Sim” or “No Service” in the status bar (upper left corner of my iPhone). I tried to re-insert the card couple of times but it was giving me same error messages number of times a day. Even, I bought new micro sim cards from different vendors to check if the issue is with my network provider but found the issue was with iPhone 4S. I was frustrated with this and was looking around on the Google for patch or solution.

I posted the same problem over the apple community and found that Apple has released a tweaked version of iOS 5.0.1 to address this problem. According to Apple, iPhone 4s sometimes fails to detect sim card installed resulting in the following behaviors.

Invalid SIM” or “No SIM Card installed” alert appears intermittently.
Status bar displays “No Service” or “Searching” in a location with good network coverage.

The original build number for Apple iOS 5.0.1 is 9A405 whereas the version of tweaked one is 9A406. I have installed that version by carefully taking backup of my iPhone settings. I have tested this for day and two and I have never encountered any error so far. This means Apple addresses this failure issue in that new version which is not released officially rather you can say it as a minor update. I would not say minor as I was having lot of issues with failure of sim like no calls, no internet?.

So if you are an iPhone fan and facing similar issue, you can follow simple steps to update your iPhone iOS to this tweaked version.
1)   Connect your iPhone to a computer with iTunes installed.
2)   Select the iPhone from Devices menu.
3)   Right click on the iPhone and click on Backup. This will backup your iPhone contents and settings to a computer.
4)   Restore your iPhone 4S using iTunes by clicking Restore button below the Check for Update button.
5)   iTunes will start downloading the new iOS version.
6)   Once the download will finish, it will restart your iPhone with newly iOS. iTunes will ask you to restore your backup from computer.
7)   Once you restore your backup, you can verify that the version is now iOS 5.0.1 (9A406) in Settings > General > About.
Hope this will help those who are currently suffering from Sim error issues with new iPhone 4S. Here is the direct link to Apple document.

Filed under iPhone Tagged with Apple, Invalid sim, iOS 5.0.1, iPhone 4S, No Service, Sim Failure

Google 13th anniversary awards held in UK email spam

November 23, 2011 by TechGeek Leave a Comment

This is yet another spam email circulating over the internet. This time a big brand name Google is used by spammers with lot more details in order to convince victim to think if it is coming from real Google. The even mentioned by spam email says “Google 13th Anniversary Awards as organized by the Anniversary Centre of Google Inc., held on Sept. 27th, 2011 in the United Kingdom”.

The email has been written so well that people will convince thinking it’s a true event and may provide their personal information. Even the email says the prize won must be claimed by the email owner only, not later than 30 days from the date of notification.” The spam email comes with subject line “Award Notification!!” with sender as Google UK. Here are the contents of the email,

“Congratulations!!

We are pleased to inform you that your email address attached to file No: G13/B-1/2011 with award reference no: GGL2011/244/M-13 has been selected to receive an award of Five Hundred Thousand Great British Pounds (£ 500,000.00) in the last batch of Google 13th Anniversary Awards as organized by the Anniversary Centre of Google Inc., held on Sept. 27th, 2011 in the United Kingdom.

Google Inc randomly selected 13 email addresses through a computer ballot system to receive £ 500,000.00 prize money each as a part of their for-profit philanthropic wing (GOOGLE.ORG) promotion. The prize won MUST be claimed by the email owner ONLY, not later than 30 days from the date of notification.

Send your complete personal information with your award ref. and file no. to enable us process your claim;

1. Full name:

2. Country :

3. Contact Address:

4. Telephone or Mobile:

5. Marital Status:

6. Occupation:

7. Sex:

8. Age:

9. Email:

Dr. Barry Petko

Director of Operations, Google Claim Centre

Tel: +44 701 028 5565 or +44 871 315 0967

Fax: +44 870 495 6313 or +44 870 471 8742

Email: gglclaims@gmail.com or googleanndraws@live.co.uk

Please do not reply if you are NOT the owner of this email address.

Sincerely Yours,

Google Management

Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Founders of Google Inc.) committed 1% of Google’s equity, 1% of profits, employee time, and in-kind giving of products and services to doing good. Keep your award information confidential to avoid double claims.”

The last few lines are amazing and spammer even used the Google founder names. Avoid such emails and never share personal information over the email.

Filed under Online Scams Tagged with 13th anniversary awards, british pounds, Cash, email spam, Fake, Google, spam, UK

International cricket world cup promotion 2011 email spam

November 23, 2011 by TechGeek Leave a Comment

Spammers continue to take advantages of brand names or events in order to lure victim into providing their personal information. Spammer collects email addresses from websites, forums, chatrooms, or newsgroups. This time the spammer used International Cricket World Cup promo 2011 event in order to spread the spam email.

The email comes with subject line “CONGRATUALTIONS!!!” Here are the content of the spam email,

“NOTIFICATION!! NOTIFICATION!! NOTIFICATION!!

INTERNATIONAL CRICKET COUNCIL

UNITED KINGDOM-LONDON [BR]

SUDBURY SUFFOLK CO10 2PG

TEL NUMBER:+ (+447017459960}+447014248130}

FAX NUMBER+44(701)002-8480

E-MAIL:CRICKETCLAIMDRAW2011@LIVE.CO.UK

E-MAIL: ICCCRICKETWORLD_CUP2011@LIVE.COM

CLAIM AGENT:DR MORRISON JONES

CONGRATULATION!! YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS HAS WON{£500,000 GBP}

IN JUST CONCLUDED INTERNATIONAL CRICKET WORLD CUP PROMO 2011.

FOR CLAIM YOUR WINNING PRIZE,YOU ARE TO FILL UP THE VERIFICATION

FORM BELLOW AND SEND BACK VIA {ICCCRICKETLONDON2011@LIVE.COM}

1 FULL NAME……………………………….,

2 FULL ADDRESS………………………….,

3 NATIONALITY……………………………,

4 WINNING E-MAIL ADDRESS……..,

5 MOBILE NUMBER………………………,

6 DATE OF BIRTH………………………….,

7 MARITAL STATUS………………………,

8 STATE/PROVINCE………………………,

9 OCCUPATION…………………………….,

10 SEX……………………………………………,

THANKS AND REGARDS

DR MORRISON JONES ”

The email says that your email ID has own cash in international cricket world cup promotion and email has ICC logo attached. This is fake and ICC doesn’t host such events. Spammer also provided UK phone numbers with this email. If victim calls or sends his/her personal information, they can lose their money. Do not share any of your personal information over the emails with anyone.

Stay tuned for more such spams on the internet.

Filed under Online Scams Tagged with Cash, Email, Fake, International cricket world cup promotion 2011, spam, Spammer

Justin Bieber doing Drugs video scam spreading on Facebook

November 13, 2011 by TechGeek 1 Comment

And new Facebook scams continue to spread with different messages. This time it is related to Justin Bieber doing Drugs video. We have again seen rise in such scams which popularly targets brand names like Twitter or famous celebrity like Justin Bieber. Scammers host a fake message on malicious servers and then ask victim to complete few surveys in order to see those fake videos. Here is wall post of affected friend,When victim clicks on the above link to see the video, he/she will be taken to the fake website which hosts this video. Here is the page looks like, The malicious link in the wall post was shortened which reveals to “hxxp://lolvid1.co.nu/”.After you click on Watch Now link, you will again taken to the new page which display YouTube like video in the background with comments. It will immediately display survey window. In order to see the video, you will have to complete surveys which will give money to scammers. Here is how it looks,

The URL is still live and so the scam. It is sad to see that despite of all warnings from different websites about these scams, people are still falling victim to such scams.