How can I protect myself from scams?
Hi everyone. Leo Notenboom
here for Ask Leo.
Here's the question I got.
A friend of mine had his computer scammed today.
Fake emails were sent to everyone in his address book, asking them to do him
a favor by buying him either an Ebay or Apple gift card and then providing him
with the card's serial number so that he could forward it to a cancer friend.
I suspected foul play and sent my friend a direct email only to have the scammer
email me back saying all was well and there was no scam.
Is there anything we can do to protect
ourselves against this type of attack and report him to some authority?
Yeah, what you just experienced is called the gift card scam.
And indeed that scam is common enough,
or that style of scam is common enough to have a name, the gift card scam.
The issue, of course, is that it's a scam and it's one of many.
There are several things that I suggest we
learn and put into place to protect ourselves from this kind of thing.
I will point out that it all starts with what I consider to be basic security.
Literally, my most important article
on the site, internet Safety seven Steps to Keeping Your Computer Safe
on the Internet is where I would point you to start.
This has the basics of keeping your
software up to date, running security software,
all those kinds of things that hopefully you're already doing.
But it's always good to be reminded
of to make sure that all of the various pieces are in place.
Now, there are a couple of signs of scams
that I think you ought to be aware of, because they are something you can use
to at least raise a question when you encounter them.
In your case, the gift card scam.
Hackers or scammers like gift cards for a couple of reasons.
One is they're generally not traceable.
And two, they're generally not refundable, which means that once you've given
that gift card to someone else, you can't get it back.
It's not coming back.
And that's really unfortunate, right?
That is why the scammers like it,
because they can't be found and they've got their hands on your money.
It's almost like giving them cash.
So the takeaway if someone asks you
to specifically pay them using a gift card, stop.
At least ask some really hard questions.
Be super suspicious.
Make certain that you're giving that to someone that you actually know is
who they say they are and is someone you trust.
The same thing applies to things like Western Union.
That's another approach to transferring
money, especially overseas, that once again,
once has been transferred, is almost impossible to get back.
Another telltale sign is the old remote access scam.
Permission to connect to your computer remotely so that they can fix something.
Don't do it if somebody that you did not call that you did not
contact, contacts you and asks for access to your computer, don't do it.
Just don't do it, because that's going to be a scam.
What they're going to do is connect
to your computer if you let them, and install malware, steal data,
play with your banking information, any number of different things, it's a scam.
It's a trap.
To quote Admiral Akbar. These are a couple of signs you can look for, right?
Gift cards, western Union, and unrequested or unsolicited remote access requests.
But of course, there are more ways that you can be scammed.
There are more ways that people can be scammed.
The single most important thing you can do is be skeptical.
Question everything.
When it comes to money,
when it comes to access to your machine, always be skeptical.
There are good people out there.
There are people who need money.
There are people who you want to give
money to, and there are friends and family and support technician whom you already
trust that you would give remote access to.
Make sure, that's all I'm saying.
Whenever this kind of stuff comes up, take the time to make some extra inquiries
about exactly who it is you're dealing with and what their intentions truly are.
If they contact you and not the other way around, make sure you know them.
If it sounds too good to be true, it's not true.
If they sound desperate or they work
to make things seem very time sensitive, slow down.
That's one of the things that they try very hard to take advantage of.
And if you're not sure even just a little
bit, ask a trusted friend what they think of what it is you're experiencing.
There is no harm and certainly no shame
in asking questions about what this is that's going on.
And finally, if you do get scammed,
there is certainly no shame in admitting it, in letting people know,
in reaching out for help to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Lots of people are getting scammed, and it's really unfortunate.
But the only way we can stop it,
or at least slow it down, is by spreading the knowledge
and admitting and learning from our own mistakes.
Now, you mentioned reporting.
The short answer is, from my perspective,
I don't report these unless you actually have been scammed.
If you have been scammed,
if somebody did steal from you or do something like that from you,
then absolutely contact the authorities in the United States,
that potentially is your local police or the FBI in other countries, I'm not sure.
The bottom line, though,
is that if you haven't been scammed, if you're just encountering a scam and you
recognize it as a scam, no, there's really nobody that you should
report this to in order to make any amount of difference.
The best thing you can do as an individual is delete the message market as spam.
Hang up on the call or whatever, and move on with your life.
The places that pay attention to this
stuff, they've got plenty of data to work with.
Trust me, they're getting the scams too.
So there's plenty of data to work with.
They're working the problem as best they can.
Your reporting something probably won't
really help that much and is really only taking up some of your time that could be
best spent marking it as spam and deleting it and moving on.
But above all, if you do nothing else, simply learn to be more skeptical about
the offers and requests that you encounter online and off.
For updates, for comments,
for related links and more, visit ask.leo.com/146215
I'm Leo Notenboom.
And this this is Askleo.com. Thanks for watching.