Common Internet Fraud Scams

The Internet is a modern miracle, and allows us to do things that earlier generations would not have believed possible. Unfortunately, it also allows for new and creative ways for unscrupulous people to scam others. Here are some of the most common Internet fraud scams and how to avoid them.

The Nigerian Letter or 419 Internet Fraud Scam

This is probably the most famous of the Internet fraud scams. Essentially, the victim receives an email that is allegedly from someone in Nigeria who has the opportunity to abscond with a large sum of money, but needs access to an American bank account to do so. In exchange for bank account information, money, or both, the sender agrees to give the victim a portion of the multi-million dollar fortune that they will have access to. Naturally, there is no money, and any money or information that the victim gives out will be lost or used to plunder the victim’s account. Fortunately, these scams are pretty easy to spot. They often come in ALL CAPS and are in broken English, and they usually, although not always, claim to originate from Nigeria.

The “Account Issues” Scam

These Internet fraud scams play on your familiarity with certain websites or companies. The victim sees a warning that your account with the company, for example, eBay, has been compromised. The victim is led to believe that fraudulent activity has been committed under his or her account which may result in criminal penalties, or that a large financial charge may be assessed to the account, or that there is some form of danger which requires the victim log in and change the account password immediately.

The irony is that if the victim does nothing, there will be no problem, whereas if the person complies, all he or she will be doing is giving the account information to the very person who is likely to cause all of these problems that the victim is trying to avoid. If you receive such a warning, never give password information in an email, and never click a link in the email to get to the site, as this may take you to a “dummy site” that looks real, but is just a front to get your information. Type the URL address that you know to be correct directly into your web browser to make sure everything is all right.

Credit Card Internet Scams

A great number of Internet credit card transactions are completely safe. However, you want to verify that you are transmitting your information to a trusted site over a secure server before you provide any credit card information, as Internet credit card fraud is still a reality.

Protection from Internet Fraud Scams

In addition to being vigilant to these types of scams, you can also protect yourself by ordering the Identity Protection Services suite from CyberDefender. You can try it risk free. It provides instant alerts any time fraud is suspected, can monitor your name or social security number on public records to let you know if your information is being used for anything, and can monitor your credit or debit cards to see if they pop up in global hacker or identity theft chat rooms.