This week is scam awareness week. According to statistics New Zealand loses up to $450 million in scams every year. Online scams are a large portion of that. Demography wise the elderly are most vulnerable ( I think it is because they are more trusting & not very tech savvy) The biggest portion seems to be online lottery, phishing scams etc.
I have written a few posts previously on this topic. Some pointers
- Delete emails you receive from unknown people immediately. ( Vague names like Franklin Roosevelt)
- Do not open any attachments send by unknown people
- No bank will email you to reset your password etc
- Be wary of emails like reset your facebook password, Twitter password etc
- Anything starting with Dear beneficiary or estate gift is Nigerian scam. Stay away full stop.
- PayPal will never ask you to reset your password in an emai. They will always address you by the name you opened the account with.
- Any funny looking email delete immediately. Do not click on the link in the email.
- If you get a strange email from a close friend or relative – asking for money – stuck in a new city – lost all money kind of thing, contact the person. That person’s computer may have been hijacked by a bot or virus.
- Keep your Internet browser up to date. (People are unaware or ignore this bit. Patches are done to rectify flaws in software)
- Keep all your software like Flash, Adobe Acrobat up to date.
- In spite of doing all the above your PC may still get infected – like I almost got caught last week!
- Get yourself a good anti virus anti malware software. I use McAfee & keep it up to date. ( It has saved me from so many viruses, malwares)
If the offer in the email is too good to be true. It probably is. If every lottery offer I receive is true I’d be the richest person in the world today!
