Spotting Internet Scams

I have been on the internet longer than most of my friends. I logged onto the internet for the first time in July of 1993. I used the AOL CD that came with my new computer.

Remember those AOL CDs that were all over the place? They were on cereal boxes and attached to sales flyers that came in your mail. In a typical week, you could end up with a hundred of them.

The first scam someone ever tried on me was after logging into AOL for the first time and having about twenty-five hundred minutes. I would get an instant message from someone claiming to be customer support and that there was a problem with my login. They wanted my username and password, which I immediately knew there was something wrong with that.

Since then, scams have evolved with changes that have taken place across the internet. You have to be very careful whenever you are doing anything. So, I hope I can help you identify scams that I have seen throughout the years.

 

First of all, if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Most companies that have your information know all about the scams. So, they put safeguards in their interactions so that you will never feel as if their practices are questionable.

For instance, I get emails from a company that I’ve been doing business with for years. They always include my full name and they never ask me for information in the email. They tell me to go to the site where I can read the full message in my internal inbox.

There are scammers who try to fake being this company. I get emails that are gmail, hotmail, or yahoo and have some kind of identifier so that I might think the email is legitimate. Professional companies will have their domain in the email, @domain.com. They normally don’t use gmail, hotmail, yahoo or any of the free services. That’s one give away.

Plus, never click a link in an email. If you think the email is actually from the company, then just go to your browser and type in the web address yourself. A link in an email could lead you to a fake site that looks a lot like the real thing. If you try to login, they have your login information stored in a database and now they can take advantage of your account. This is called phishing and it’s a common practice. People have tried to phish facebook, twitter and even google.

But, what’s scary is when they try to phish online banking companies and investing sites. You can get wiped out clean if you’re not careful. So, always go to your browser and type in the web address yourself!

 

Emails that come from a rich banker in South Africa or a lottery administrator from the UK are always a scam. You should be able to tell by the fact that they want very sensitive information. The lazy ones ask for bank account information on the first try.

I can’t imagine this scam working on anyone. But, it must be. I’m still getting these emails and I have been for years. The more savvy scams along these lines will ask you to contact someone, which is an email, an address or a phone number. Who is going to call and who will want to wait on the mail? So, they know the email will work.

So if you have inherited 1.5 million from an elderly lady who is dying and just wants you to administer her account for charity, ask yourself a few questions. Why do they need you to send them money to cover shipment of your check? There’s a million dollars there. Why can’t they just use that money?

 

Home shopping jobs are not always scams. I used to work for one and it was alright. I ate at nice restaurants for free. How you can tell the difference is that the scam will send you a check and have you cash it using your bank account. Then, they’ll have you run all over town buying items on a list. One of those things to do will be to visit the Western Union and send them a significant amount of the money they just sent you.

When the check comes back to your account, you’re the one who pays the fees and it ends up costing you thousands of dollars. But, they have the money you sent them via Western Union and they are off to another victim.

Something similar happened to me recently. A lady contacted me out of the blue and asked me if I could help her out getting her back to America. She was stranded and the company wasn’t paying her. Of course, I gave her the best advice I could but never sent her any money.

I told her to visit the embassy or find a church. Places like that have a way of helping people out when they are really in distress. Well, she eventually told me that the company paid her but she couldn’t get the check cashed. So, allowed her to send me the check. But, I gave her my bank’s address.

When the check arrived at my bank, I went there and then called the bank the check was drawn against. I asked the clerk who answered if the check would pass. She told me the check wasn’t legitimate. It was written against an account that had been closed.

A bank officer can’t give you account information as far as how much money is in the account. But if you read the account number to them and tell them the amount on the check, they can tell you whether or not the check will pass.

 

The worst form of scam though is when a scammer will use a tragedy to scam money. So, don’t allow yourself to get caught up emotionally in the tragedy and answer any email looking for donations. If you want to donate, watch the news or google it. You’ll find legitimate companies to take your money and do the right thing with it.

 

There are so many more scams that it’s hard to include them all. But as you can see the main premise, if it’s too good to be true, it most likely is. Do some investigating. Google a company’s name if it’s in the email. Contact the company directly if you feel someone is trying to scam you. It’s worth it to do your due diligence if it could mean hundreds or thousands of dollars in damage.

Most companies have their own spam email that you can use if you get spammed by someone claiming to be them. But in the case that you can’t find a spam or fraud email, use the federal government email to report scammers. Forward any suspicious emails to spam@uce.gov and let them handle it. Don’t alter the email in anyway. It contains information that you can’t see, but the IT Techs will know how to find it.