Unfortunately being scammed is something that a lot of us have experienced
or have known someone else who has been had. It is never pleasant and
at best leaves us feeling silly and abused, at worst losing a lot of
money and feeling desperate.
1. The unclaimed parcel - I have been receiving a lot of emails
recently from a so-called courier company telling me that they have
a parcel for me that they need me to claim. The email looks very professional
and has a photo of a docket with my name and details on it. To claim
the parcel I have to give them lots of my personal details so that
they can be sure I am the right person. Yeah right. This is totally
a scam, there is no parcel, all they want to do is to try and get
as much personal information from you as possible and if that includes
passwords or account numbers etc the better it is for them.
2. Job offers - If anyone offers you a job out of the blue
via email, it's a scam. The emails all look very professional and
come from many different types of business all looking for someone
to work for them, such as a finance officer or debt collector. They
want you to accept money from their overseas customers into your bank
account and then you take a fixed percentage of the money and forward
the rest to their bank account. The catch, or catches should I say
are 1, you will have to give them your bank account details and 2,
the checks paid into your account are fake, so when you transfer the
percentage of the money to their account you are in fact transferring
your own money.
3. Requests for help - This con happens both online and door-to-door.
It is so easy to be scammed by this one and I have known several people
who have fallen for it. Basically the situation is that you will receive
an email with a sob story asking for your help. They won't ask you
for money at first, but are trying to get a report going with you,
so that when they do ask for money in the future you are more likely
to give it to them. The other scenario is that you will either get
a knock at the door or come across someone in the street who is very
distressed and is saying that they need to get to a certain hospital
(normally the other side of town) urgently as their mother etc has
been taken seriously ill and they don't have any way to get there
apart from a cab, which they cannot afford. Watch out, this can be
very convincing, but as soon as you hand over the money and see them
walking down the street, you will just know that you have been scammed.
4. Fake signatures - this con is as old as the hills and is
something that hopefully many people are aware of these days. Goods
advertised for sale as being signed by famous people is a very lucrative
business, where some items can be worth thousands. However it is all
too easy to be fooled into buying an item only to find out later that
it is fake and getting your money back is impossible. If you do buy
something make sure that it comes with a certificate of authenticity
and even then ask the seller what their return of sale policies are
if the signature is found to be forged.
5. Internet auction sellers - this is a relatively new scam
and has come about with the advent of online auction sites. Not every
one has either the time or the know how of the equipment to sell their
goods on line, but guess what, there are companies that will do this
for you for a small percentage of the profits. Now many of these companies
are genuine, but always find out as much as you can about them before
you hand over your goods. There have been cases of people handing
over their property to be sold only to find that the company disappears
shortly afterwards along with your goods. There are also tips here
on this website about buying
safely online.
6.
Credit card fraud - Now this one is not really a scam but is worth
mentioning just to let you know about it. Unfortunately there is not
a lot that you can do about this one apart from being alert when you
hand over your credit
card to be charged in stores and restaurants. This fraud happens
when a employee skims your card with special credit card reading equipment
to get your cards details, they then make copies of your card and
use it to buy goods. The secret is to never let your credit
card out of your sight and watch what happens to it carefully
to ensure that it is not swiped twice, once for your transaction and
once for the cards details.
7. Cold calling - Now cold calling has been around for years
but only recently has it become used for scamming the public. There
are two ways this can be done, either via the telephone or door to
door. The telephone version is when you are called out of the blue
by a company who try to sell you something but ask you a lot of questions
on the phone, trying to get you to say yes to something. Then months
later you find you have been billed for a service you did not want
and when challenged the company simply plays back a altered recording
with you saying yes to being signed up.
The door to door version of this is when a salesman comes to your
door and tries to sell you something. They are persistent and even
though you say no over and over again they keep on with the pitch
until they finally accept your rejection but they ask you to sign
a form to say that they have called on you. They say it is to prove
to their bosses that they have done their work but once they have
your signature it can be used to sign you up to their service. This
is not happening so much now since it became so wide spread a few
years ago by the energy companies, but be aware.
8. Bank verifications - Being conned by a financial institution?
Surely not! Well in this case not, it is only fake companies posing
as your bank to try and get you to verify your account details with
them. These emails can look like they have come from your bank and
even have all the logos etc, but no bank would ask you for your account
details over the Internet or even on the phone. If in doubt simply
telephone your bank and ask them if they sent the email or telephoned
you. I bet the answer will be no.
The secret to not being scammed is unfortunately to always have your
scamming antenna up and not to trust anyone with your money. It's a
sad testament to the world we live in but there seems to be more and
more ways that people can find to relieve you of your
money no matter how frugal you think you are. Luckily there
are also a lot of good people out there and they out number the bad
guys, so don't get too depressed but also don't get scammed.
There
are of course scams that do the rounds for years or go in and out of
fashion like clothes. Many of these so called offers and opportunities
that come your way sound very convincing. It always amazing me how low
some of these con men will go to try and snare our money, so I thought
it would be a good idea to give you a few of the scams I have either
read about on the internet or have experienced myself, in the hope that
it will give you all a heads up on these ones and help to prevent you
from being scammed by any of them in the future.