It’s sometimes very difficult to know. Nonetheless, there are some signs that make it very likely that an email is a scam:
- If it came as spam. If we could only advise you of one thing to do to protect yourself from scams, it would be to never respond to spam. 99.999% of all spam are scams.
- If it has misspellings, bad grammar, and/or very poor English.
- If it is a very emotional plea.
- If it asks for a money gram or wire transfer or money order (so you definitely can’t get your money back).
Any of these factors are huge red flags that the email is a scam.
It is probable to buy almost something over the internet these days. Unfortunately, scammers can use the unknown nature of the internet to rip off unsuspecting shoppers.
Scammers can pretend to be selling a product frequently very cheaply just so they can steal your credit card or bank account details. Likewise, they may seize your money but send you a defective or worthless product as an alternative or even nothing at all.
Most online auction sites put a lot of endeavor into spotting scammers, which is why scammers will often try to acquire people to make a transaction outside the auction site. They may claim that the winner of an auction that you were bidding in has pulled out, and then offer the item for sale to you. Once they have your money, you will never hear from them again and the auction site will not be able to help you.
Another common trick is for an online sale to be rigged by the scammers. If you are selling a product, the scammer can enter a low proposal followed by a very high bid under another name. Just before the auction closes, the high bid will be withdrawn and the scammer’s low bid will win. If you are buying a product, the scammer can arrange for ‘dummy bidders’ to boost the price up.
Other online shopping scams involve the sale of a product such as a miracle cure or weight loss product that does not live up to its claims. It can be very complex to get your money back in these circumstances, particularly if the other party is based overseas.
If you purchase or sell online, you should also be alert of cheque overpayment scams.
With more than 22 million single practitioners and small firms in the US and proportionately huge numbers in other countries, business cheat are, well, big business.
Most weeks, in our Scamlines catch of the newest scam news headlines, at least a couple will be business scams — where credulous firms are conned out of hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Vendor are a particular target of business scams and you can read our particular report covering some of the most common business scams in Scambusters .
In addition, many of the tricks played on private individuals often also reappear as business scams, like phishing and forged checks.
And, as we recognize, the crooks don’t stand still. They’re continuously dreaming up new scams and variations of well-established ones. So, for this week’s Scambusters offering, we have pulled collectively a list of 7 recent business scams to watch out for (in addition to the retail tricks referred to above).
A fresh form of ‘phishing’ has just come up to light. This scam gets hold of your personal details like social security number, driving license number or bank account number under the guise of giving you a job. This most up-to-date manner of scamming was unearthed at Sheridan, near Greenville, Michigan. Scammers used the good name of a famous Hospital and cheated people into revealing their financial details by offering jobs there.
The scammers, supposed to be 4 in number, first spread rumors that the hospital was being bought over by its competitor. They then widen the word that it was looking for employees for its maintenance department. Next, they contacted a candidate through an internet jobsite and recruited him as a supervisor after a “selection process”. The selected candidate was asked to submit all of his personal details to the “company”.
The new supervisor was then given the duty of recruiting others to work under him in the department. The aim of the scammers was to collect personal information of the other prospects too and to make money at their expense. Using such personal information as bank account number and social security number, scammers are able to transfer or withdraw funds from your personal account.
Usually phishing scams are done by sending an email to you and asking you to submit information at a fraudulent site. You don’t think twice before giving away the details as these mails are made to look like statement you would normally receive from your bank.
Unluckily for the Greenville scammers, the lid was bluster off their scam before they could get clutch of the personal data of the other people recruited by them.
