The Internet is a wonderful invention. To me it's the greatest technology that mankind has ever produced. It's changing the culture of the world as well as the world economy. The tasks it allows us to accomplish are mind boggling. I can talk and collaborate with a friend halfway across the globe using my computer microphone. I can look up and get detailed information and how to's on anything I want, instantly. A world of useful and relevant information is at my fingertips.
Unfortunately all is not right on the Internet landscape. There's a lot of evil people out there. These people were probably doing evil things before the Internet came about, and now they have a fantastic new vehicle for spreading their evil ways. To put some nerd into this article, they have chosen the dark path. Why do they want to do these evil things? Money is probably the number one reason. Boredom and fame are others. What do they want? They want your credit card number. They may want your social security number. They want to send you a cashiers check that's way over the sale price for payment for an item at which point they want you to send them back a cashiers check for the difference. The catch is the check they have sent you is a fake check and will bounce.
The good news is that people are educating themselves to the ways of these evil doers. I'm going to help you to recognize some of these scams. I'm going to give you advice on steps you can take to minimize your risk of falling for one of these scams.
Email seems to be the vehicle of choice for these scams. The common name for these types of emails are Phishing emails. They are called that because the bad guy is fishing for victims. I get about 3 or 4 of these emails a day. I have seen enough of these to be able to tell you the common traits among all of them. If you get any email resembling any of the following chances are it's a sham and the email needs to be discarded. 1. The person is addressing you as Kind Sir or Madam.
2. They say they are some government official, diplomat, some person of royalty from a foreign country. Usually they introduce themselves as "I am" so and so from "the noble"" or "the great" land of **some foreign country** 3. They have some lengthy bizarre story of hardship.
4. Their grammar is way off.
5. It's usually a @yahoo or an @msn email address, although it could be others.
I never get far enough through the email to see what it is they want, but I assume it's money of some sort. Most of the general population can easily spot these and tell that they are a scam because they are just so strange sounding. But other emails come much better disguised. They arrive looking and sounding very much official. They will even have the proper domain extension (ie @paypal.com, @bankofamerica.com etc). Usually these scam emails want you to update something on your account. They will say something similar to the following:
"While checking your account we noticed that some information is not correct and needs to be updated. Please click on the following link and update your information. If you do not update your account we may be forced to deactivate it (cancel it, suspend it). Thank you, *signed* , The (Bank of America, Pay Pal, Wells Fargo etc) Account Team."
The best practice for these is as follows:
1. Do not click on any link where you need to enter any information, or update anything. If the supposed institution really wants you to do something to your online account, they will ask you to go to their website yourself, and log into your account.
2. If you have any question as to the legitimacy of the email, call the institution if you can and ask their support staff about it. If the institution has no number to call, go to their web site yourself and send them an email asking about the email.
If you are an Outlook or Outlook Express user an additional step would be to install a some spam blocking software on your computer. Shortly I will be using and then reviewing one of the popular spam blocking software programs that are made for Outlook and Outlook express. Another step would be to sign up and start using a Google email account. Google's email service does a great job of blocking junk and scam emails. You need either a cell phone or an invitation in order to get a Google email account.
Following these tips will help you, your money and your information stay safe on the Internet. As always use caution when clicking on anything in an email.
Carlos Cabezas writes regularly about home technology at http://www.HighTechHomes.tv/blog. His business, High Tech Homes, helps work at home professionals, families and small businesses with their technology issues.
[tags]virus, scam artists online, spyware[/tags]
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