Knowing how to prevent fraud is an essential step in protecting your finances. You need to gather the tools and a mindset if you want to be effective in fraud prevention.
Why is coronavirus dangerous? Why does it spread so fast? When will all of it end? Are there any virus tests? What does it do to your body? How to stay safe? You’ve likely stumbled with some of these topics since the virus outbreak that was proclaimed to be at the end of 2019. By the time you get to this article, there are dozens of thousands of blogs talking about it. Anything you need to know has already been …
Have you ever been in a situation such as the following? A person you trust is acting strange. Your mind can see the red flags, but because you have a relationship of confidence with this person, you create an exception. “Appearances can be deceitful.” Think of this example: A friend tells you he’s going on vacation to another country. But one week after he left, you find someone in the distance that resembles him in a local supermarket. Could it …
Have you wondered what moves scammers? Is the answer as simple as “money?” In these days, technology gives us more power than ever. You can either use those tools to create value or deceive people. For others, scamming feels like the only viable option. Even if you chose to scam, it takes effort and practice. You can use those same resources to create something beneficial. If so, why are fraud cases increasing? The fraud triangle may give us some insight. …
Did you just receive a suspicious email, call or a text message that was supposed to be from Bank of America? How to tell if it’s a scam and what can you do about it? Thieves attempt to lure you into providing personal information with the help of bank phishing and email spam, fake telephone calls or even through regular mail. The goal of getting your personal information is the same, just the communication method is different. Bank of America …
Can you trust Moneygram? Yes, they can scam you on Moneygram, just as they can on any platform. Like Western Union, Moneygram is a money transfer company that wants the best for their customers. When we look at the usage of these payment methods that others make, that’s a different story. Even today, the most preferred methods to pass money to a scammer are money orders and wire transfers, hence the bad connotation of these companies. It doesn’t mean all …
“Receive FREE cruise tickets to travel around the world, any place you desire. Click the link, fill in the form, and we will email you with the gift!” “The Airlines are giving away free flights to 100s of lucky customers. Get your tickets now and click the link below! Those who don’t travel a lot would most likely reject the offer. How can you get such a deal for free? It can’t be true. Experienced travelers, however, know that such …
Cookies stuffing is an illegal practice that leads to improper credit allocation. In essence, it is an act of fraud by which people can earn illegitimate commissions without doing genuine work. The affiliate makes his money not by referring people to the merchant’s website as they should, but by loading the website secretly and without the visitor’s knowledge in the background. In doing so, the affiliate wrongfully receives a commission and is in fact defrauding the merchant. To understand cookie …
Would you hand someone your credit card and tell them to go have a shopping spree, your treat? No. But you may as well be doing that if you don’t take some precautions with your identity. Fraudsters are watching you, and they’ll jump at the chance to steal your bank account number, Social Security number, and anything else they can exploit for personal financial benefit, not caring about the damage their victims may face. If you really want to hand …
Once you’ve been a victim of fraud or identity theft, it’s difficult to know what you should do first. One of the statements you may have heard when it comes to identity theft is a fraud alert. But do you know what fraud alerts do, what types of fraud alerts are available or how fraud warnings work? What Is a Fraud Alert? Credit fraud is nothing you ever want to concern yourself with, but the sad fact is that some …
Identity theft, credit fraud, criminal impersonation. Losing your documents to an imposter may lead to permanent security issues. By the time you see the impact on your credit score, you’re already late. Sure, you protect all your bank accounts and whatnot. But do you protect your identity in all your accounts? Most of us use the same passwords for everything. What happens when some unwanted person gets into the account? One thing leads to another. One data breach leads thieves …
Cash and vending machines are prone to security breaches and outdated cash machines are especially vulnerable. If you’re the owner of a cash or vending machine you must acknowledge the most common security concerns to update or replace your machine. If your machine is located in an isolated area and left unmonitored, it could be drained of the merchandise or cash inside it. Depending on the security level of the machine, it might not require security upgrades. This is valid …
The United States is the most litigious country on Earth! Americans file on average file a new lawsuit every 2.5 seconds. Litigation in the US is serious business and this shows in the amount of lawsuits and lawyers we have in the country. Each 60 seconds courts around the United States register an average of 30 new lawsuits. This is 1800 lawsuits an hour. 42,000 lawsuits a day. Do we have enough lawyers to file all those lawsuits? Yes we …
How do doctors get paid? Healthcare isn’t free in any country: citizens pay for it. “We pay doctors when they provide lots of health care, not when they provide good healthcare.” About 19% of the USA’s GPD goes to healthcare. 3.5 Trillion. Why does the US spend so much on health care? Why do Americans pay at least twice as much as any other developed country? To put things worse, healthcare scams cost us $70 billion per year, which adds …
Debt collectors are in the business of collecting on your debts. Debt collectors have to employ pressure tactics to get people to make their payments so they can close their account and be paid for their time and their services. While the majority of collectors collect unpaid accounts in a morally responsible way, there are fishy techniques that some of these companies use to get people to pay up, and to pay up now. In fact, some are not actually …
Are you paying too many taxes? If so, you may have thought of avoiding them. Say “Yes” to tax reduction and “No” to tax evasion. While taxpayers should never lie on their reports, one has the right to minimize them as much as possible. Some people take that statement too seriously, like stealing data to make someone else pay for their tax. They come up in the form of phishing messages on tax season. A scammer poses as a tax …
Elderly adults lose billions of dollars through financial fraud. To scam a person, you need three conditions to be in your favor: Some schemes involve more risk than others, but it’s all about who you scam. A tough target can make the task impossible, while an easy target— the elderly— gives an opportunity. Some seniors are as easy to fool as a kid. Except that seniors have money and children don’t. Would you rather scam a skilled businessman or a …
Debt relief scams exist because so many of us are in debt and we dream of being rid of the debt, of resolving it once and for all, and not having the burden of owed funds on our shoulders. In fact, most of us are so excited to be out of debt that we often don’t check out things as thoroughly as we should. Are You “In The Deep”? Millions of people have this exact problem. What advice would you …
Who will run for and become our next elected representative of our people? Is winning as simple as getting the most votes? Does your decision count? How do you know that someone has not tampered with the machines or that your actual ballot has not been changed to reflect the way someone or a group of people would like the election to go? How do you know that the person voting in the booth beside you has not been coerced …
Tax season + phishing attacks = Hunting season (for scammers) Every tax season a new IRS scam does the rounds and unfortunately a lot of people fall for the scam and have their personal information stolen. By clicking on any link in the list below you can see corresponding screenshots of real IRS phishing attempts: Have you ever found any of those? Convincing, aren’t they? Most people fear the IRS because they know how powerful they are. Ironically, few people …
How would you feel if you lost your wallet? Most people would file a fraud alert. They’d call their banks to block their credit cards. As for the cash, there’s little you can do. How about the ID documents? Yes, that includes your driver’s license. Most of us do not think of our driver’s license as particularly valuable or something that we need to decidedly protect, but there is more than one driving license scam out there that could affect …