moon and sun

 A lovely full moon close to the horizon (overexposed, because phone camera)

17:30 GMT, looking east

And, because it’s a full moon near the horizon, there’s a lovely setting sun 180 degrees away:

17:30 GMT, looking west

well, at least we shouldn't get a lot of aphids!

 

one of the several swarms of ladybirds in the garden today

new (to me) telephone scam

I encountered a new telephone scam today.  I got a call from someone purporting to want to buy my Logica shares as part of a takeover.  It sounded a bit dubious, but had some degree of plausibility, since I did have some shares, back when I worked there, but they were all forcibly sold when the company was actually taken over several years ago, after I had left.  So I explained I didn't have any such shares any more.  Then it got a bit weird.  Apparently I had some "bonus" shares still remaining, that hadn't been sold at the same time, and it was these that they wanted to buy.  I was still dubious, but it sounded a little more plausible than many such calls.  So I thanked them, and said I would contact my financial advisor about it.  They said I didn't have to do that, but I insisted, and rang off.

A very little Googling led me to this helpful website, which explains it is (of course!) a scam, and how the scam works.  If I had gone along further, apparently I would have first been asked to sign an NDA, because the purported takeover was a Big Secret.  Presumably the NDA was to make me feel I shouldn't contact a financial advisor.  Then, once the transaction was about to happen, I would be asked to deposit a substantial sum in an "escrow account", just to guarantee I would go through with the transaction.  Aha!  Absolute classic sign of a scam: they claim they want to give me money, but first I have to give them some.  Of course, the escrow account is fake, and, of course, they then vanish as soon as they have the dosh.

I was trying to figure out afterward what was actually dubious about the call, given it was so much slicker than your typical scam.  I decided it was how clearly narrowly scripted it was.  Unlike a genuine call from my bank or electricity company or whatnot, where there is a script but it branches a lot, this one kept coming back and repeating the same information.  And she even kept talking through the script as I was trying to talk.

It is interesting to see the evolution of the scammers.  But I have a boiling hatred of these sort of people.