After watching Oprah, yes I happen to watch an episode of Oprah, I realized that many people are falling for e-mail scams, and how clever these "scammers" are. In fact, I almost fell for a scam E-mail I recieved regarding my PayPal account, if it hadn't been for my internet savvy father warning me before hand. Primarily, I just want to help you to know if you recieve a scam e-mail, and how to avoid making yourself known.
First of all, the scam e-mails are generally related to any type of account with your personal information on the web.
This includes:
- Amazon Accounts
- E-Bay Accounts
- PayPal Accounts
On Oprah, a woman had been bidding on a wedding dress that she couldn't otherwise afford from the store. She won the bid, and followed through with purchasing until she reached a hault due to the fact that she had not met the reserve price. She was very dissapointed, but soon after recieved a professional looking Ebay e-mail saying that though she hadn't met the reserve price, the seller was willing to give her the dress at the price she bid.
Ecstatic, she responded right away asking the seller how she could proceed. In a very friendly way, they asked her to transfer the money into their Western Union account, at which time they would contact her with the shipping details. Hazed with wedding fever, she immediately did so and never once heard back from the recipient of her transfered $2,400.00
What happened here?
Even I was surprised to hear that it wasn't the seller who tricked her, it was someone closely watching the bidding price, and once they realized she had not met the reserve price and saw th auction go back up, contacted her directly using the E-Bay e-mail and ploying on her desperate, vulnerable bride-to-be state.
The moral of the story is it isn't hard to know if an e-mail is a scam. The first tip when diagnosing an e-mail as a possible scam:
1. If you have to think about it, IT PROBABLY IS!
Why? Because professional online account service companies NEVER request personal information, NEVER send account details involving money over e-mail and NEVER navigate you away from their site. All transactions are done through their website, so you know it is legit.
2. DO NOT for even one second, assume it isn't a scam because the company logo, graphics, fonts, etc. are in the e-mail. It is beyond easy to create an e-mail that looks like any one elses.
3. Legitimate online companies NEVER send you a specific link to a portion of their site that asks you to fill in delicate information. They will always ask you to log into your existing account and make changes.
That is pretty much my 2 cents worth of advice, if followed, you will never fall for an e-mail scam. Before I leave you, let me tell you about a common scam with many online account holders...The one I recieved regarding e-bay.
They tell you that they're going to cancel your account, and you need to click a link and fill in your account information otherwise your account will be void.
