You Can Be Affected By Internet Fraud, If You Are Not Careful
Almost everyone has heard of the typical Nigerian scam where someone posing as a high member of a foreign government tries to launder money using some unsuspecting person by sending spam email. Very few people realize the extent of Internet fraud. It goes far beyond the scam e-mails that you see in your inbox every day, far beyond the internet viruses that you are warned about in the news.
Fraud on the internet is a multi-billion dollar business. Today, Internet fraud takes on many different forms.
Many people are smart enough not to get scammed over email, but the same people get ripped off over eBay all the time or they unknowingly click on advertisements without actually knowing it.
There are online dating scams, auction scams, spoofing, phishing — you name it and someone has probably already ripped someone off using it. Sometimes an internet scam means that you lose money, however, you can usually recover and move on. However, internet fraud can be much much worse. People have their identity stolen over the internet every day, typically by being lazy with their personal information.
A good friend of mine had his identity stolen by simply clicking on what he thought was an email from PayPal. He didn’t even realize he logged into the scammers site. Because of his simple mistake, he had thousands of dollars of purchased made using his name. Only after a week had gone by did he realize what had happened.
Although he recovered from the fraud against him, his experience should be a lesson to all of us. He was not able sue the people who scammed him, since they were located in outside of the US. He was forced to eat most of his losses and go on with his life.
Be aware of who you are doing business with and never give out too much information to someone that you are just starting to establish a business relationship with. Always verify any email you get claiming to be some popular bank, company or website asking you to verify, confirm or update your personal information.
By simply paying attention and asking questions before you give up any information you can avoid many of the common scams going around on the internet.