Scam Tactics Primer Tutorial
A big topic in the online world these days are issues related to “scams”. These “scams” are costing many businesses and citizens of many countries around the world millions of dollars a year in each of those jurisdictions.
One of the approaches to staying out of trouble with online scams is, as you’d expect, to be up to date with what is out there, as a scamming concern. Here in Australia we have the website called SCAMwatch as one tool in the armoury of online users trying to avoid being scammed.
Scams can take many forms, and don’t have to always involve online Internet activities. Here are some of the questions to ask yourself about unsolicited approaches …
- is the offer in the category of “too good to refuse”?
- helping out a person you’ve never met in a fix?
- asking for a donation, with very little background information?
- asking you for login details to computers or devices?
- asking you for credit card details?
- involve email addresses from email services that are public, yet the context appears to be business orientated?
Go through your own “checking out” of these contacts before committing would be our advice here.
Below are some categories of “scam” activities to get you thinking on this …
- advance fee fraud – asked to provide payments in advance
- lotteries, sweepstakes and competition scams – offer lures you via you being a unique surprise winner of a windfall
- dating and romance scams – the early communications seen benign, but later credit card details and trips overseas often become involved
- computer hacking – old software can sometimes be exploited, as well as simple to guess passwords, and/or passwords the same with many different websites, perhaps the knowledge of which is given away by the user on a social media website, for example
- online shopping, classifieds and auction scams – scammers send faulty goods, second chances to buy items, fake ads on legitimate classifieds websites
- banking, credit card and online account scams – phishing emails appear to be from bank but are not, asking for account information, credit card magnetic strip information copying, scammers using your credit card to pay for goods without the card itself
- small business scams – fake bills issued, unsolicited internet domain name registration, being charged for goods you didn’t order, you have to fax back to receive an offer
- job and employment scams – guaranteed incomes, requiring payment upfront
- opportunity and gambling scams – “not to be missed” and “high return” out of the blue phone calls, computer programs guaranteeing sports results or share market movements, large upfront payments to participate in money making ventures
- charity and medical scams – pretend to work for charities asking for donations, miracle cure promises, weight loss promises
… delivered primarily online over the internet, via phone calls, via postal mail or door to door.
Strategies to protect yourself?
- keep informed about current scam activity via websites like SCAMwatch
- ignore lots of these unsolicited approaches
- don’t agree to offers there and then
- question who is at the other end given what you know
- ignore the tactics “pushing your buttons” that scammers use
- secure your computer devices and laptops
- online payments should only use secure payment systems
- people you don’t know or trust should never receive your money
- do not give our personal identification details on public forums like social media
- tell others when you have encountered scamming activity
We’d like to thank the Australian Government’s The Little Black Book of Scams (a pocket-sized guide to spotting, avoiding and reporting consumer fraud) by Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for great information to go on, constructing today’s tutorial.
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