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How to Beat the Scammers
By CruiseDirector | March 26, 2010
Cheaters and con-artists have been here as long as humans have. While no one is sure really why, there will forever be those who are looking to take advantage of their peers and gain the benefit of their effort. With the inception of the internet, the prevalence of such scammers has been made crystal clear. Some have gotten emails claiming to be from African princesses while others have had bargain offers of timeshare rentals from supposed timeshare companies. The fact has been that these groups have simply been looking for personal or banking details, in order to make a large extraction of money from the victim’s bank account. In this essay, we’re going to look at how a few of these scammers work, and how you can best avoid their negative plans to steal your hard earned money.
The internet shouldn’t be wholly blamed for all scamming that’s going on. One recent kind of thievery on the rise is that of stealing the PIN numbers of customers. For instance, if you go to a department store and wish to extract money at the point of sale, you’ll need to swipe your card and key in your secret PIN number. If the person working at the store is there at the time, they might be able to see you put in the numbers, and know the actions to take in order to extract your money. When this occurs in a local area, you can sometimes be told of numerous instances in which friends and family have had thousands of dollars stolen from their account.
Taking us back to the internet, one of the most often occurring forms of bank fraud has been the hacking of peoples computers to get credit card information. This will often be done by proposing to sell a supposed customer an item, then simply taking the credit card information and using them to take a withdrawal. Alternatively, hackers might make a fake email that looks like it has been created by a banking company. They’ll sail this email along, telling you that the bank is remaking its website, or a similar lie, and that in order for your details to stay in place, you’ll have to visit a certain website and re-enter your personal details. Of course, this website is made not by the bank but by a group of hackers, and once you’ve sent your details away, they’ll begin to steal your money.
In order to combat these types of scammers; the most useful defense is common sense. Always check emails you receive very carefully, and make sure they’re from a legitimate source. Even if you believe they are safe, you must always be extremely careful when sending your personal details onto any website. In fact, most banking pages will tell you they don’t ask for personal details to be resent over the internet, since in the cases when this is required it can be completed by safer means, such as through a physical branch of the bank.
Keep your head straight and pay attention, and the con artists won’t be able to get you.
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