Top 10 Internet Scams
May 20th, 2009 by Kiwi Commons
During times of financial crisis, you can always rely on scammers to make life that much harder. A nation in distress is a fraudster’s happy hunting ground, where holiday bargains and cheap credit have greater appeal as more and more people tighten their belts in a grim economy.
Web users are being warned that 2009 will see an onslaught of internet scams from any which way. Scammers are lurking everywhere, whether you are emailing, using social networks or casually online surfing even without clicking on any links.
To spot a scam, ask yourself a simple question: Is it too good to be true? If you answer “yes”, chances are, it isn’t true.
Here are The Top 10 Internet Scams for 2009, as predicted by E-Victims:
1.) Social Networking Scams: A popular scam, which involves messages you receive in your social network inboxes or through chat services like MSN. These messages notify you that you are in a YouTube video or are mentioned on Twitter, with a prompt to click on a link. When you follow the link, your computer gets compromised with a virus, spyware program, or other malicious software. Dating scams, hacked accounts and supposed old friends asking for money because they are in trouble are the most popular forms of social networking scams.
2.) Work from Home and Job Scams: These scams have been around for years, but as unemployment levels rise, they are likely to gain in volume. Many work from home scams involve asking you for money upfront to cover either a start-up fee, the cost of training, or supplies and materials. Remember however, legitimate jobs should pay you, not the other way around.
3.) Holiday Scams: Scammers love this one. They offer great deals on flights and vacation packages. In the end, victims pay and never get the vacation or their money back for that matter. Only trust authentic holiday companies like Contiki Tours.
4.) Economy-related Scams: Loan and debt consolidation scams have been increasing throughout 2008 to 2009. These types of scams include repossession assistance and unemployment insurance.
5.) Auction and Classified Ad Scams: Scammers use local online classified ads, like Kijiji.ca and Craigslist.ca, to find their victims. This scam varies, with one version offering a product they don’t actually have, which means you pay and never see the product. Another version involves scammers responding to sellers with an offer to buy whatever is up for sale. They then send the seller a cheque for a larger amount than what was asked for, and later persuade them to send the extra money back to them or a friend. Low and behold, the seller finds out the cheque is a fake only after they’ve refunded the money.
6.) Fake Websites: Common ways criminals attract you to their fake sites include: phishing, domain hi-jacking and posting in forums. These fraudsters posing as online retailers, offer bargains or impossible to find items, to attract victims. They simply set up a website for a brief period, and then shut it down, only to launch a new site and do it all over again.
7.) ID Theft and Phishing: The market for financial data on individuals is huge. Criminals try to steal your personal information using different techniques, including phishing, social networks, telesales, hacking into websites, and setting up fake websites. If you don’t want your ID stolen, then don’t share unnecessary personal data online. If a site insists on knowing your date of birth or postal code, consider using fake information unless it’s a trusted site.
8.) e-Ticket Scams: Criminals are producing counterfeit tickets for concerts, festivals, football games, and other events. They sell them online through auction sites, classified ads, or by setting up their own website. To save yourself the agony of being scammed, only purchase tickets from respected dealers like Ticketmaster.ca.
9.) Viruses and Spyware: You can’t get away from these it seems, whether opening an email, visiting a website, or downloading software. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know if you are visiting an infected website. The only way to battle this is to be prepared by backing up your data and regularly scanning your computer using a good, up-to-date anti-virus and malware program.
10.) Nigerian Scams: These scams have been around for what seems like forever. Why? People continue to fall for them. There might be a thousand variations yet they are all basically the same. They offer you a large sum of money, but in order to receive it you have to pay a fee in advance. One word, DON’T!
Posted in Internet Safety | 
guides, Internet, news, privacy, scams |
|
