by Kim Chambers
Protecting yourself and your business from scams is an ongoing battle. If you operate online there are higher risks to combat as fraudsters have moved to the internet to run new variants of their offline scams. It is heaven for fraudsters since they have access to a worldwide audience as well as being able to be more anonymous on the internet.
One of the most common scams operating at the moment is the internet scam. With the increasing number of postal lottery schemes it is easy to fool people into thinking there are other lotteries operating other than the National Lottery and of course there are lotteries from other countries.
Lottery E-mail Pitch
The header will be something along the lines of ‘Winning Notification’. The scam offers you something for nothing, so if you haven’t entered into a draw the e-mail should be immediately deleted. Other angles include offering you the chance to join an investment scheme that will give you huge returns or give you a cut for helping them to get money out of the country.
Although it is clearly a scam many people get suckered in to these scams because there are some convincers such as e-mail address. E-mails will contain from addresses very similar to the real website address which adds a level of authenticity.
There are hundreds of examples however by being sceptical we can all protect ourselves. Why would someone give you something for nothing?
If you want to check if the sender of an e-mail is legitimate you can contact the hotline but the general rule is simple, if you haven’t entered don’t reply, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.
To gain scam and fraud awareness regularly keep up to date with the latest scams by attending industry expert seminars such as the Marcus evans scam seminars.
About the Author:
Kim enjoys writing articles on how to keep safe online. To find out more visit Marcus evans scam conference.