ID Scams On The Increase But Why Do People Never Learn?
May 31st, 2008 by MarkWe have all seen the news, we have all seen the warnings but it seems as though fewer and fewer internet surfers are taking notice of the warnings about online ID theft. As the worldwide economy continues to struggle there have been reports of more scams, more fake emails and more attempts than ever before to get hold of you private information.
While just a matter of months ago the vast majority of surfers would not even have given these con tricks a second glance it seems that more and more people are becoming desperate and money is very tight. “What have I really got lose?”, “Surely they can’t all be scams?” and “Where did they get my email from?” are all questions that people are asking themselves, seemingly trying to convince themselves that everything is ok.
The likes of PayPal has always been a target for the fraudsters in the knowledge that the vast majority of internet users will have access to a PayPal account for eBay or maybe even for their own inline business. However, the banking sector is the new leader in the scam league with more and more people receiving unsolicited emails asking to confirm their bank details – emails which are not even addressed to the customer!
A simple piece of spyware is often connected to these emails so when recipients click on the link their every key press is recorded – banking websites, URLs, user names and passwords are all noted and saved by the scammers. They may not even use your details for some time, they may actually sell them on or you may be one of the lucky ones that escape – it is one big lottery!
But why put yourself in that position?
No bank will ask you to confirm you details via a link in an email, no bank will address you as “Dear Sir”, “Dear Madam” or “Dear Customer” so these should ring your first alarm bell. Whether you choose to listen to these “bells” is up to you.
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June 7th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
My 75 year old mother is always forwarding emails to me that are clearly scams or phishing attempts and I wonder how many people fall for them. I always look at the details of the sending URL and if it looks phishy it probably is. Thanks for the good info.
kents last blog post..Entrecard Starts Selling Credits!
June 7th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
The horrible thing is that the scammers are getting better and better so even if it looks OK it may be a scam
/Andreas
June 11th, 2008 at 7:48 am
The internet is a scammers dream with more and more setting up automatic systems targetting people at random. They know for certain that it is only a matter of time before they are able to ’set-up’ a target. For those unaware of what is going on, the internet is a very dangerous place.