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Following is some of the feedback sent to e-watch.co using the Contact us link about the Scams & Cons that have been tried on them.

On the Dyson scam. We had the call and my wife was under the impression that it was a Dyson initiative “Do you still have your Dyson?”
When the chap came we were here in strength and he made it clear he didn’t work for Dyson but a private company owned by his uncle which serviced most makes of vacuum. He provided comment on other makes which matched our experience and reviews – Miele, Vorwerk etc
He cleaned the machine and pointed out that there is not much else to do but he then demonstrated the increased performance by changing each filter, there are two, in turn and the performance was restored.
We have regularly washed the ‘lifetime’ filter supplied by Dyson (we have two, one as a spare) and despite that it worked much better than before so obviously the ‘lifetime’ filter still should be changed.
The other filter, HEPA, is under the motor and according to the Dyson helpline should not need changing. I have cleaned that too with an airline as not washable like the others, but the performance also improved when it was changed.
The standard filter was charged at about the going rate for its type (non-Dyson replacement) but there was an uplift on the HEPA filter of a few pounds. As the machine now works well again we think that we were perhaps suckered into the service visit but that the overall costs are reasonable for a home visit.
In our case now we have the name of the manufacturer of replacement parts we can source our own when necessary so not too worried.
Overall the cost was £65 including VAT so not the £100 which someone was stiffed with.
I suppose the only clue people can look out for is the fact that he came in a car not a written van and if unsure I suppose people could ask for details of the company before agreeing to a visit.

I was telephohed at 10.21 this morning by a young sounding woman with a possibly European accent saying that she was from EDF and that because I had always paid my bills promptly I would get a 40% reduction from now on in my electricity bills. All I had to do was have a Spikemaster installed. I did not progress the call and when I checked later with 1471 the telephone number had been withheld. I have not so far been able to raise anyone at EDF to establish whether this was a genuine EDF employee/offer

(I reckon this is a scam. I Googled 'edf scam phone calls' during the past month and found several hits including this one HERE - Ed.)

I found the article on email harvesting very useful but it's not clear to me how spammers harvest the addresses of people to whom you forward a message using the 'To' field. I would only forward emails to people I trust. Please can you explain?

When an e-mail is sent to several people using 'TO' or 'CC' each will receive a copy and it will contain the e-mail addresses of the others who were sent it. They will not see the e-mail address of anyone who was sent a 'blind' copy of the e-mail using 'BCC'.
For example, ALAN sends an e-mail to BILL and CHAS and a BCC to WILL. BILL can see CHAS's e-mail address and CHAS can see BILL's but neither can see WILL's.
If BILL forwards the e-mail to TOM, DICK & HARRY then TOM, DICK & HARRY will see CHAS's e-mail address. When this has been done several times (like forwarding a funny joke) the e-mail could contain hundreds of private, valid e-mail addresses. When such an e-mail lands in the inbox of an unscrupulous person they could sell the valid addresses to a spammer. -Ed.

I was interested (and horrified!) to read about the telephone scams in this area. A couple of weeks ago, I received a call from a man with a pronounced Birmingham accent asking if we would be interested in taking part in a Cranbrook based trial of an emergency device(?). I said no, at which point his manner changed abruptly and he became aggressively abusive. I disconnected the phone and rang 1471 but discovered that he was still on the line. I cleared down again, waited a few minutes and tried to use the phone again. Either he was still on the line or had used some device to get back to me, but he then said that he would continue to ring me every 10 mins until 3 in the morning. I cleared down and have had no further calls that I can identify as coming from this individual. As we are signed up to TPS, I rang BT to report the call. A female answered, checked that we were indeed signed up to TPS and said that she would put us on a higher level of security which would not stop the nuisance calls but should reduce the numbers. It hasn't!! We now get 2 or 3 times the number of either silent calls or marketing calls than before. Was our number passed on? We shall never know, but it is extremely annoying and I intend to follow it up with TPS in the New Year.
(I believe the TPS only maintains a list of phone numbers that legitimate companies must not call. I assume if a company is reported by someone on the TPS list then they risk being disconnected. Obviously calls originating outside the UK are immune from such disconnection so many calls will still get through. Also, I understand that a call is not considered terminated until the caller disconnects. This 'feature' has been used in various phone scams ("I can cut your phone off now") - Ed.)

I have just had two phone calls from someone telling me I may have been chosen to get a free alarm system. I did foolishly tell them I owned the house and they rang me back but I refused to have anything to do with them and they put the receiver down I don't know if it is some sort of scam but I thought I better report it. (It's either a scam or a pressured selling technique. Either way, if it is not the type of call you want to ave in future use the Telephone Preference Service (see link below)-Ed.)

A reader writes...

Today I had a call from Landmark Security saying they wanted to discuss our alarm system. They knew the name of our house. When I told them our security was none of their business she continued to question me about alarm facilities we have here. I put the phone down and dialled 1471 and was told "the caller withheld their number".

(There is a company in Maidstone called Landmark Security. If you want to avoid cold calls use the Telephone Preference Service (see link below). You did exactly what I would have done if someone called me and started asking me about my alarm system! -Ed.)

A reader writes...

Today I received a call from a man who could hardly speak English claiming to be from World Wide Server regarding my PC Computer, he said there was a virus on my PC. Curious because I don't have a PC, I let him carry on talking and basically he wanted access to my computer. I asked him for his telephone number and he said that the call he was making was generated from a computer and he did not have the number. I ended the call and dialled 1471 and the number of the caller was withheld.

(NEVER let ANYONE remotely access your PC, no matter how friendly or helpful they appear to be. Click HERE to read one of our many articles about these scams. I have had several of these calls myself. I suspect that they originate from overseas to bypass the requirements of the Telephone Preference Service which is the official central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. Click HERE to go to their website. -Ed.)

This is a new one to me...

From: "WESTERN UNION" [western@union.com]
Date: 02/12/2011 14:35

To undisclosed-recipients: ;

Subject Contact Mr,milton Daniel

Please be informed that you have £50,000.00 Fifty Thousand British pound Lodged in our Western Union to transfer to you as Compensation.

Contact Mr,milton Daniel

Contact Email: milton.daniel@msnzone.cn or milton.daniel60@yahoo.com

(I don't think this one will fool too many people. Appalling English (even if it supposed to be American) and I doubt that Western Union use Yahoo for their e-mail -Ed.)

On the 22/11/11 I received a call from a company called EFX in India, tel. no. 0800 520 0304. They asked to assist on a computer problem but I turned down their request. I think it was a scam call and consider you may wish to alert others.

Just to let you know following receipt of the latest West Kent Watch that we also received a call from someone claiming to be from Windows Service Department offering to fix viruses in our computer. On pressing for contact details the man said his name was Yassu and he was calling from Oxfordshire and his telephone number was 01865522108. We knew it was a scam and didn't try to call back but pass this on to you for what worth.

(This type of feedback is important as it will make other readers aware of how widespread these scams are and what 'flavours' they come in -Ed.)

I received an email, purporting to be from my friend, Gemma. I thought it was strange as she would never say "yo Linda", but I opened the email and it said I had to click the link and I would become unbelievably rich - yeah, right. I deleted it without opening the link, but when I mentioned it to Gemma she said her email account had been hacked and that she had had nothing to do with this being sent. Apparently it had been sent to everyone in her contacts list. Her daughter innocently opened it, and I suppose she must have given some of her details, because they withdrew money from her bank account.

I then received a reminder email from them a couple of days later. I hope you can warn other people about this. Individuals who have money problems might think this is the answer to all their problems.

(Click HERE to read our article about Trojans - Ed.)

Dear customer.
A courier did not deliver the package to your address.
Reason: ncorrect delivery address of the package.
Please find the attached document containing detailed information about delivery failure.
Read all information carefully and come to the "Royal Mail" office to receive your package.
Thank you for using our delivery company.
Customer service.

Hi there,
I’m not game to open the attachment above which I would assume is a virus of some sort, I thought perhaps your tech guys might like to have a go.

It looks like it’s aimed mainly at businesses but I guess it could catch members of the public particularly if they’ve actually posted a package.

(It was actually a Trojan - a piece of malware hidden inside something innocent to try and get through your computer defences. Click HERE to read our article about Trojans -Ed.)

Comments: In connection with the 'unecessary software' article I am writing to say that as a long standing IT Support company operating in Kent and Sout-East London we have received numerous calls in the past six-weeks from customers being contacted by "Microsoft" wanting to make a 'remote' connection to fix an urgent PC/Network problem. We have worked with Microsoft for 30+ years and we can't get them to call us - so beware! (my emphasis - Ed.)

Comments: Re the Computer phone calls. I too have had these, claiming to be from Microsoft about an error report I recently sent. Again, I was asked to turn on my computer to go through an installation process. I obviously refused and the phone was put down on me and, not surprisingly "Microsoft" have not called again!

Comments: I too have been called by "Windows" asking to be allowed to login to my laptop. Man sounded Asian and would not answer questions re Microsoft and who he represented. It was in theory about virus protection - but clearly unauthorised by the Microsoft Channel.

Comments: Reading info on parcel scams, it may be coincidence, but last night, around 5pm a delivery driver arrived at my door carrying a parcel and the usual hand-held scanner/computer. As I was not expecting a delivery I checked the item which had my full address printed on the label, but with the name Mr S. Winner. I appeared to be from a company ending in the name James. I refused the parcel and the man left. This could be a genuine error, or could be linked to the parcel scam.

Comments: Yesterday I had two phone calls from people telling me that they were calling about the Windows program on my computer. They stress how important it was that I made time to talk to them,I told them I did not have time . Today a chap identifing himself as Alex rang. Very polite, he asked if I had time to talk to him and would I like to go and turn on my computer. I said No. He told me that I he was going to help me prevent virus etc. I told him that if he wanted to help he could put it in writing.He rang off soon after. I rang 1471 but no number was left.

Comments: Seeing your article in this weeks West Kent Watch e-mail (issue 840) about the computer scam, reminded me of a phone call my father (and uncle) have had. I am an IT engineer, and so was contacted by both of them to find out what was going on. I think it may be related to the item you had in the e-mail this week. Basically, it would seem they phone people up, and tell them that Microsoft have received error reports from their PC, and they'd like to connect up and fix the problems. As far as I'm concerned, this is obviously a scam - but alas, both my father and uncle were less certain!