10 SCAM WARNING SIGNS
1. The Offer Seems Too Good to be
True
If it seems too good
to be true, it almost certainly is. Examples include money left to you from an
unknown relative, being awarded a loan or grant you haven’t applied for,
winning a lottery you’ve never entered, and being selected to receive a share
in funds in return for using your bank account.
If an offer looks too
good to be true use Google to search for it. Add scam to the end, such as UK
lottery scam, or (Name of Company) grant scam. If it is a scam, someone will
almost certainly have written about it somewhere, unless you’re the first
victim of a new scam.
2. They Want Private Information
Many scams involve
getting hold of your bank account details. Scams involving identity theft also
seek personal information. A common scenario is an email supposedly from a bank
asking you to click on a link to confirm your bank details and password. If you
think the email has really come from your bank, pick up the phone and confirm
this with them, but banks don’t do this.
Never click on links
or attachments in emails from people you don’t know or you risk your computer
becoming infected by viruses, trojans, or other malware.
3. Grammatical Errors
Scammers may be
intelligent, but they are not always well educated and don’t always have
English as their first language, and their grammatical errors can give them
away. For example, an email from a law firm or bank should be free of
grammatical errors and spelling mistakes (especially if they’re repeated). If
the correspondence you receive is full of errors, be very suspicious.
4. Requests for Fees
Scammers will want
advance payments or fees to clear the funds or complete their offer. It will
never be clear exactly what the fees are for, but the scammer will tell you
they have to be paid or the money can’t be released. They will often adopt an
approach that suggests they are only trying to help you out. Never pay fees or
taxes in advance unless you are 100% certain it is not a scam.
5. Suspicious Email Domains
Look carefully at the
domain name of every contact you make through the suspected scammer. For
example, you receive an email from a law firm saying you’ve inherited a large
sum of money from a relative you’ve never heard of. Let’s call the firm
Mitchell and Smith. If the email is fromAccounts@Mitchellandsmith.com, it may
be genuine, but an email fromMitchellandsmith.Accounts@aim.com is probably from
a scammer.
Suspect any free email
address such as hotmail, aim, yahoo, gmail. Some genuine businesses do use free
emails, but most do not. Other domain names not connected with the name of the
company are also suspicious. Use a Whois lookup such as domaintools.com for the
domain name (the part of the name after the @ sign) to find out who owns it,
and see if anything about it looks suspicious. Do this for the company’s
website too, if they have one.
Scammers are
guilt-free sociopaths who have fun ripping people off, and their emails can
sometimes reveal this. If you suspect a scam, look carefully at the names they
use for the company and individuals and see if there is anything funny or odd
about them. Even if the names look genuine check them out using the white pages
online (or yellow pages for companies). Many genuine business people also have
a presence on sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Google the name of the
person and the company, and all the email addresses, and do a search on Google
Blog Watch. If you can’t find any reference anywhere to your contacts, they’re
probably fictional.
Contact details can
also be a sign of a scam. For example, if the only way you can reach the person
is via a mobile phone rather than a landline, it could be a scam.
7. Suspicious or No Addresses
Fraudsters do not want
their victims to know where they live. If there is no physical address and your
contacts won’t give you one, it’s a sure bet you’re being scammed. If there is
a physical address, check it out using the Internet or Google Earth and see if
it’s a real address.
Genuine businesses
have physical addresses, and they also need to be registered, so if the
business is genuine you should be able to find an address.
8. Request for Access to Your
Computer
A common scam is a
phone call from someone claiming to be a technician who has detected problems
with your computer and would like to fix them for you free. Never give anyone
remote access to your computer unless you have contacted them and are 100%
certain they are not a scammer.
9. Untraceable Payment Method
Scammers prefer
payment methods that are untraceable, such as Western Union. Be very
suspicious, as a genuine business will have genuine banking details. But don’t
pay anyone advance fees by any means if you have the slightest suspicion it is
a scam.
10. Pressure
Scammers will often
put pressure on their victims and urge them to pay immediately or lose the
opportunity. A genuine business making a genuine offer will never pressure you
to act immediately.
The best way to avoid
being the victim of a scam is to be aware of the warning signs and heed them.
Also be aware that scammers understand psychology and know how to manipulate
people into doing what they want.