Visa card scam - Please read.

Yesterday I received a text message from VISA saying -

Ultimo aviso, su tarjeta visa a sido bloqueado por su seguridad. Para desbloquear su tarjeta visite [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
(Last warning, your Visa card has been blocked for your safety. To unlock your card visit [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

As I'd just come from the bank having drawn money from a cashier I thought it was a bit odd and decided to look at the web page [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to see if I could find out anything more. The page I pulled up simply asked me for card information (number, date of issue etc) and had no bank ID or security symbol.

So I popped into one of the village banks this morning to ask them if this was a scam and after the manager made a couple of calls it was decided that it most certainly was and this was the first they'd heard of it, they have contacted the fraud division of the banking authority and asked me to let as many people know about this as possible.

If anyone has had this message and acted on it by filling their details in on [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] contact the bank that issued the card immediately and report it.

Please pass this information on to friends and neighbours that may not have Internet access , remember that Visa cards are not just credit cards many of which have they're own insurance, in my case it was a Visa electron which is un insured and could have been used to clear all funds within seconds.

Thanks for the information & warning Muskaterra,

Thanks also

Just heard from Caixa Galicia and they have three British clients in Andalucia that have fallen foul to this scam to the collective tune of 11,200 €. It's non Spanish residents being targeted which stands to reason so please keep passing the message on to anyone you know including those in other provinces.

Good shout. Thanks for the warning.

Having worked in IT/Finance for most of my life, it is worth re-iterating that there are NO banks or other financial institutions that will text you, email you or phone you and ask YOU for your details.

If you EVER get phishing emails or texts, i.e. Please visit [bank] to verify....

either (best option) IGNORE them or visit the bank site you NORMALLY do, by TYPING the address you normally visit or by using one of your own bookmarks.

Please NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER click a link in an email that supposedly comes from your bank. Within milliseconds you could have been routed through several servers, each one of which downloads and runs scripts on your PC and which can scan for every single piece of information you have on your hard drive. I know this because I can do it, have done for legitimate reasons for firms I have worked for, and it is quite easy to circumvent most firewalls and other security measures on your PC.

If you have a PC, it will NEEEEEVVVVEEEEERRRRR be safe, no matter how much you try to lock it down. Install Firefox and stop using Internet Explorer, turn on your Windows Firewall (though is it like a chocolate fireguard), install AVG (dont waste money on Norton, Symantec et al), stop accepting 'cookies' by default, install Adaware. Run them all regularly (every other day, if not every day). Clear your history. Delete unwanted data regularly and immediately defragment your drive. Buy a portable hard drive and use it to store documents instead of your hard drive. Remember to UNPLUG it if you're not using it. Never!!!!!!!!!!! leave your PC on and connected to the net.

Or, buy a Mac! They are a little more expensive, but you don't need to spend more on anti-virus software, firewalls and anti-spam. I've had mine for three years and it is as fast now as it was when I bought it, has never crashed, never needed a new 'driver' to make something I have bought work, never had a virus attack, the battery still lasts 2.5 to 3 hours of mains power etc., etc. When a new operating system comes out, you won't find half your printers, CD drives and games and things need to be replaced (and the new operating system actually works as it should).

Having said that, if you get an email from me telling you that you have won the Canadian Lottery and all I need is $8,000,000 for admin to claim £$100,000,000 it will be genuine! hahahahaha

Thanks Nige. Good info and reassuring to find that i'm doing most of what you suggest, apart from buying a Mac.

So buy a Mac. Trust me, £600 on a Macbook will save you money over the next three or four years (and longer when things get tight, money-wise). Remember the last time you had to take your PC in to the shop because you had to buy a new graphics card when Windows 7 came out, or a new sound card or a new whatever. Add that to the cost of your £350 PC. And it's more than money, it's your time. When you get a new update for Apples, there's no re-configuring the system because it has changed what you have spent hours setting up, there's no having to sit there til three in the morning trying to get something that worked before the update working again.

Of course, you get (and I know them) people who will tell you that you can mess about to your heart's content with a PC, build your own blah blah blah. Why? It's like buying a dog and barking yourself. Wouldn't you rather be USING it, not maintaining it?

Here's a quick survey question for you. Go into your local town. Count the number of little PC shops that fix, upgrade etc. Now, look for the nearest Apple repair shop. There are something like 40 in the WHOLE of the UK. There are almost that many for PCs in the large city I currently live in.

I wish I could afford a Macbook - Apple Mac's are far superior to PC's. I have a Mac Mini and a G4 and have NEVER experienced any viruses, never had to download any anti virus software and they just keep going and going and going! Good to hear of a fellow Mac user on this forum. Just going off the original topic slightly, PC users will always say they are better than Mac's. How come half the world has or wants an Apple iPhone and iPad????

Haha - you're right they will, but [to paraphrase] pity them for they know not what they do!!

The only thing I've found you can do on a PC that a Mac can't do is high end video games, yet the iPad is brilliant at that now too.

My current Macbook is partitioned to run Windows if I ever need it. I never have. And if the BBC would only sort out their web-site and get away from Flash, or at least run concurrent HTML5 content like almost every other provider, I'd switch to my iPad for good. They are amazing pieces of kit. (which by the way, iPad 1s are now selling on eBay for £200 - my mum bought my kids one each and they've given up on the PC altogether at their mum's house).