Does anyone have an email address for Oro Riccardo?

Pricks. Almost fell foul to a scam this morning. Rang the Government department involved (on hold for eons) and was informed it was a scam. Thanks the scamming fuckers for the waste of time.
 
Pricks. Almost fell foul to a scam this morning. Rang the Government department involved (on hold for eons) and was informed it was a scam. Thanks the scamming fuckers for the waste of time.
Sadly, the scum-bags are rife, more so now it seems than ever with pretty clever and sophisticated scams that'll fool even the most switched-on. I shudder to think how many vulnerable and/or elderly are losing their money. I've had to brief my elderly Mum a few times, and told her "if in doubt, hang up".
 
One nice one I had a while ago was from a solicitor / law firm in Japan ........ Apparently an American citizen had been killed in a road traffic accident in Japan ....... This company was dealing with his estate and could find no living relatives / dependents back in the USA ..........

According to them , under Japanese law , if they could prove there was a link between the deceased , and someone with the same surname ( me) , then the proceeds of the estate could be split 50/50 between them ( the law firm ) , and me ...........

Obviously the best way to deal with this crap is to just delete it .... but I did make a note of the name of this law firm , and such a company actually does exist in Japan ........... Of course , if I can find this out , then so can some bloke sat down at a kitchen table in Lagos , or in an office block in Thailand , or wherever ) ....... but I do wonder how they managed to figure out my surname .......... ( or if they even did .... I can`t remember exactly now , but they wouldn`t necessarily have to mention my last name in the eMail ....... ) ........

I don`t know about now , but all they used to do in the past , was to send out multiple eMails ( peter 572 , peter 573 , peter 574 @ yahoo .... in other words , fishing ) , and if one of these responded , then they would now know it was a live eMail , and someone was at the other end ...... so that eMail address would then automatically be moved to a list of what they now knew to be valid eMail addresses , to be targeted again in the future ........ In the early days , these lists would then change hands , sold on to other scammers ........

I have`nt been troubled by any for years ....... If you just delete it straight away , they are none the wiser , and they ( or the computer programme they use ) will just assume it is not a valid address ..... Afterall , you don`t keep sending mail to an address if there`s no one there , or if no one replies , do you ? .....

Maybe they operate in a more sophisticated manner nowadays , targeting you personally by name ...... ...... my PC has still remained a scam-free zone though ........

BTW .... Banks here in the UK always make it clear they will never contact you directly by eMail if it concerns access to your account ....... as Tippie says , if you receive something like that , let the eMail wait , and contact the bank yourself to check .....
 
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A while back I got a series of emails from someone purporting to be from a collection agency chasing an unpaid invoice of a couple of hundred bucks. It appeared to be a pretty lame attempt at a scam, so I just deleted the emails without answering them. After ignoring the emails for a while, I got a phone call from the company. I told the bloke on the phone to fuck off and hung up. Then I started getting mail in my letterbox from the same company, which I chucked in the bin. This persistent scamming went on for about a year, and I was beginning to think the bugger was unusually persistent.

It eventually became clear that it was a legitimate demand when someone turned up at my door to serve some legal paperwork on me, inviting me to attend a session in court! It turned out that it was a real collection agency, and it was all about an invoice from years ago that had slipped through the cracks of my bill-paying procedure. The court papers identified who the original complainant was, and not wanting to front up in court and explain myself, I paid the outstanding amount immediately.

I phoned the collection agency and apologised for my previous rudeness to them. I did suggest that their approach looked very much like a scam, and that it would have made things a lot clearer if they'd said right at the beginning of the whole mess who's bill I'd forgotten to pay, but that info wasn't made available to me until I read it in the court papers.
 
I was telling my relos about an email I got a few years back with a telephone number asking about my identity. The relos immediately started saying SCAM. I rang the bloke who turned out to be an individual who somehow found a way to identify undispersed dividends from franked shares or wills that couldn't be disposed of because people couldn't be found or any unclaimed money floating out there. I was suspicious but we talked, he took a percentage if his inquiries proved successful but in my case, it just wasn't worth his time as it wasn't a big enough sum but he did tell me the details. I have some shares that paid dividends annually and I got a notification of that but apparently I had thought it was automatically being deposited in my savings account but it wasn't. It was just sitting in the Banks account, their bank shares and this had happened for about 10 years, not huge sums, usually about $300 a year, but it had grown to $8000 and with some effort to identify myself, it was a nice surprise. So not all this stuff are scams.
 
And that is why it pays to contact the mob directly, and not by the contact info from the potential scammer.
This is how I discovered, last year, that I had just given my bank information to a scammer. They had spoofed the banks number so it looked like an authentic call from the fraud department. They also must have bought some data from hackers since they had my account numbers and balances. Something was still suspicious, so I called the bank on another line and found out I had been catfished. We locked the accounts before the scammers call was over!
Unfortunately, the bank required us to present ourselves in person at a branch to close the old and open the new accounts. And of course, they had no overseas branches, so we had to fly from Panama to Miami for 24 hours to clear up the mess I made! Since then we have gotten several calls asking if we had made certain charges in foreign countries for large amounts and now we always say that, yes we have. It totally flummoxes the crooks!
 
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One other thing I would never do , is when , for example , your PC asks you if you want to let it save your password , or copies / stores your card security number .... that sort of thing .........
.... Whilst this is an attempt to make things more convenient , or quicker for you ( saving you that vital milli-second or two ) , I always decline this kind offer .......... To my mind it is rather like walking off down the road leaving your keys in the front door ........

I may be being over cautious , but .............


Another thing ........ not relating to scammers as such , but it kind of concerns eMail versus real mail ..... ......... When I received a speeding summons from Gloucestershire Police back in 2020 ... ( 46 mph on a 40 mph restricted dual-carriageway ......... 10 % plus 1 mph leeway = 45 mph .... I was 1 mph over that .... thanks a bunch .... ) .........
Anyway , I replied to the summons , ( including my carefully worded mitigating circumstance ) ......... sent it off ...... and heard nothing more for about four months ......
I assumed there was either a backlog of cases holding things up due to Covid , or that they had accepted my pleas of mitigation , and had decided not to pursue it any further .........
However , this all came to an end when a letter with big red wording plastered all over it arrived , advising me this was a final request , and I had better pay the fine ( and accept the three points on my licence ) , or else ...........
They had obviously found me guilty ( BASTARDS ) ........... but all previous communication had been lost in the post , it seems ....... Maybe due to Covid disruption , who knows ........

....... So this was one case where a notification by eMail would have been a good thing , however unwelcome it may have been .......
 
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A few years ago when I visited Riccardo regularly as I worked locally I asked him about email - he said that he would receive so many he would never get anything done ! - I am looking forward to Breganze in July will visit him and 3C moto with a list of bits to go back in my pannier
 
I have inside information that Ricardo will not be answering any query in another language than Italian anymore.
He advises those not speaking Italian to purchase a BSA Bantam. Plenty of suppliers in the far East speaking English for those.
Ciao tutti
Paul
 
A few years ago when I visited Riccardo regularly as I worked locally I asked him about email - he said that he would receive so many he would never get anything done ! - I am looking forward to Breganze in July will visit him and 3C moto with a list of bits to go back in my pannier
Is his shop/workshop in Breganze? I’d love to visit it when I’m over this July for the anniversary.
 
It’ll be pretty easy to find as it will be surrounded by Laverda owners hoovering all the spare parts up. I’ll probably wait till the rush has subsided and then hope that he hasn’t sold all the parts that I’m after😂😂
Tom
 
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