9 replies to this topic

[KChristen]

Hello astro industry friends,

 

We wanted to alert all astro retailers of a potential scam.  Today we've had 3 different retailers forward an email to us that they received, purportedly from Roland Christen of Astro-Physics.  I've attached a screenshot of the email (with the retailer information blurred).

 

The email address is not Roland's, and the phone number is not our number.  Neither Roland nor anyone associated with Astro-Physics sent these messages.  We don't know what these scammers are trying to accomplish, but we care about our industry and don't want to see anyone get scammed because someone used our name.   

 

Please feel free to call us at our actual phone number - 815.282.1513 - or email me directly with any questions:  karen at astro-physics dot com.

 

Wishing you all clear skies,

Karen Christen

Astro-Physics

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Edited by KChristen, 30 April 2024 - 02:35 PM.

[AstroPotamus]

Well, that sucks.

[Poynting]

I recognize that 210 area code, San Antonio, TX. 

[Xeroid]

The poor grammar is a give away...

[AstroPotamus]

210 area code is likely not where the call is being delivered, geographically.  I own an IT company that provides VoIP service (among other things) and caller ID spoofing is trivially easy.

[Bob Denny]

If you can capture the entire original SMTP message as received by the To: addressee, including the headers, you can tell a lot. Thunderbird can save the message as an .eml file. They look with Notepad etc. There may be a chain of Received: headers that can provide a clue. 

[AstroPotamus]

Unfortunately, it's likely going to be a wild Cygnus chase.  Email is even easier to spoof these days, and most spammers are using fake accounts anyway, so it's not worth the effort that would be put into it.

[turtle86]

The poor grammar is a give away...

 

The phrasing sure seems a little off.  

[Skywatchr]

210 area code is likely not where the call is being delivered, geographically.  I own an IT company that provides VoIP service (among other things) and caller ID spoofing is trivially easy.

Yes, this is true. I had received calls from my own spoofed number. And had people call me asking why I called them, when I obviously didn't.

I even texted "myself" twice.

[Dan Crowson]

These emails are fairly common. I tend to get a few a day that get through my filters. You just have to be real careful these days. With this one using a generic email address, there's little that can be done to block them since the usual email stuff (DMARC etc) won't help here.
 
I just tell people that if something looks even a little suspect, just hit delete.

Dan