Scams and more scams!

Well one would think that in 2009 we would not have to worry about telling people about scams. There are so many emails that go out, and so many people that talk about it in the news and on radio that you would think everyone would know how to be careful. Well I have been shown how that is not true. First let me tell you a story and then I will give you some guidelines that are so important to keep in mind to help you keep from getting scammed.

OK... here is my story. I know this family that is struggling a bit right now. You know, more month than money thing. Well the mom, lets call her Susan, gets an email message that she opens and reads. It says they are looking for people to work as mystery shoppers. Now this is not totally a scam yet, but I would not have opened the email. So anyway she answered the email. The people helped "set her up" so she could get paid and all. Not bad yet. But this is where it starts getting interesting (spelled warning lights should be going off all over the place).

They said for her first assignment she was to shop Western Union because they were having complaints about foreign transfers of money (lights start flashing, big red lights). So the instructions were that they would FedEx her a cashiers check for $1500. She was to cash the check (serious warning beepers going off), keep $200 (siren starting to blare), and then wire transfer the remaining $1300 to an address in the United Arab Emirates (people running up now screaming and hollaring not to do it!!!!!).

For those that are in the know already know where this is going of course, but for those uninitiated I will finish the story. She cashes the check and does the transfer. A couple weeks later the check comes back as a fraud.

Sidenote here: Cashier's checks take like a week or two to clear and are often used for scams because of it.

So now she is out the whole $1500 and someone is $1300 richer. Interesting note is that she even felt that it might not be legitimate and so asked the cashier at the bank if the check was good. Personally I put a large fault on the bank. This is a well known scam that has been around for several years at least. One would think that they would have major amounts of training for the cashiers on this and when she asked it should have raised a lot of flags. Actually you would think that the banking industry would be doing something to fix this huge security hole. But I have worked in computers for many years and I have learned that the obvious often escapes management. At least two days later when they wanted her to do a second one she was wise enough to go to the police and talk to them about it. They informed her she had just been scammed and there was nothing they would be able to do about it.

So how do you make sure you don't fall for a scam? Well here are some points to use to evaluate anything that you come in contact with.

1. Anything with a cashier's check is an absolute no no!!!!!
2. Anytime someone sends you "money" to send back a part is an absolute no no!!!!
3. If they make an offer to you without you asking first then it is at least something to be VERY VERY suspicious about.
4. If they are asking you for personal information like social security number, login name, any sort of passwords, credit card numbers or anything else like that and they called or emailed you then DON'T GIVE THEM ANYTHING!!!!!
5. Make sure you enter the web address for all websites correctly. This is especially true for financial sites.
6. You will NEVER get an inheritance from someone in Narobi unless you were originally there and you personally knew them.
   
7. NEVER send money to anyone that contacted you first!!!!
8. No one every gets rich quickly from any sort of financial or business venture that is legitimate. The only get rich quick is the lottery and if you want to throw your money away like that then just send me the cash instead and I will invest it wisely and really truely get rich.
9. If in doubt Google! Take a key word or phrase from any message you get and Google on it and 99% of the time you will find a large number of listings showing it for the scam it is almost certainly is. Google is your best friend.
10. You can also contact your police to ask about suspicious things too.
    

Here is another story for you, this one about giving out personal information. Yesterday my wife got a call on the phone. It was automated. They said that there had been a breach in security at the credit union and they needed to check cards then reactivate them since they had deactivated them on the alert. The message then said to enter the debit card number into the phone. My wife, wisely, just hung up on them. Read point 4 above again if you are wondering why she hung up on them.

So re-read the list above. Print it out and post it next to all phones in the house. Memorize it. Teach it to your kids, escpecially the teens and college age kids. It is amazing how many of them, as tech savvy as they are, will fall for these things. Send the link to this blog to your friends and relations. And most important to remember.....

If you have any thought at all that it might be a scam it almost certainly is!