there is no shortage of people out there
who would just love to take your
hard-earned money and it seems like
they're always getting more and more
clever and they have a lot of tricks up
their sleeves but I'm going to go over
some of the more common scams to watch
out for on the Internet
obviously there's going to be variation
for all of these but it's important to
know the basics behind each scam so you
can watch out for so let's go first up
is the all-time classic phishing scam
these have been around for a long time
as far as I can remember probably as
long as the Internet's been around and
there's no sign of these going away
anytime soon so you've got to know how
to spot them every phishing scam tries
to do one thing which is to trick you
into giving them your password and this
is almost always done by sending you a
fake login page that looks like a trust
website that you know there are
countless ways they can get you onto the
fake site but once you're on there if
you type in your password instead of
logging to the website it goes straight
to the scammer they can then use that
log information you typed in to log in
to the real website and access your
account themselves for example you may
get an email that looks like it's from
your favorite website or your bank and
will give some reason why you need to
click the link in the email to maybe
reset your password or verify your
account before it gets deleted something
like that and the link may even look
very similar to the real website the URL
itself with just a letter off or
something like that so you might not
notice it and if you're not paying
attention you won't even notice that
it's not real so that's why it's
extremely important to be skeptical of
any email links even if it looks like
it's from a trusted sender I should also
point out that many websites banks
especially usually do have a special
email address that you can forward these
phishing scams to so they can
investigate so you can just google
search for like bank name report
phishing and it should tell you how to
do it so you can help out other
customers so they don't get fished next
up is the so called hitman scam which is
actually pretty scary if you don't know
about it and what happens is you may
receive an email from someone claiming
to be a hitman and they will literally
say that they were hired to kill you
I know right but they'll say that
they're willing to spare
life if you pay more than the person
that hired them yeah it's pretty sick
and they might give any number of
reasons like they felt bad or they had
second thoughts but in any case it's
important to remember that this is a
very common scam and there isn't
actually anyone trying to kill you
however if you receive this type of
email it isn't a bad idea to still
report it to the police just in case
obviously also don't be too alarmed if
they reply with some personal
information to try to prove that they're
real what likely happens is they send
out thousands of these emails and just
whoever happens to respond they do a
little bit of extra digging just for
those people by searching your name and
email and probably can find a lot that
you just use on websites and they can
get information that way so it's
obviously best to there's not reply to
these at all and knock it on the radar
and it's reported to the police
moving on we have a common type of scam
software called scare where and it may
be in the form of a computer virus or
even a popup on a website or something
like that and the idea is that it will
tell you that you have some sort of
virus on your computer and that you need
to buy this thing to fix it whatever it
may be and if it's just a pop up on a
website it's easy enough to just ignore
these just click away and a lot of times
you may even see these on your mobile
phone where like a full screen pop-up
appears and it starts vibrating your
phone and all sorts of crazy stuff
telling you that it's infected it's
obviously BS but if it's the result of
something that you actually downloaded
and ran then ironically you do actually
have a virus but that software itself is
a virus it's just trying to get you to
pay up for no reason and the way to fix
it in that case is to use a real
reputable antivirus scanner to remove it
or do a Google search for instructions
on how to remove that particular virus
yourself now I should point out that
there is another type of virus called
ransomware which is like scareware
except this one has teeth you see with
ransomware the virus will try to
literally encrypt your entire computer
locking away all your files forever and
make you pay to unlock them they really
do this unfortunately with ransomware
this is usually no bluff so if you
haven't been backing up your data
there may actually be no way to unlock
their files unless you pay up and they
can sometimes demand hundreds of dollars
so as I've been saying many times before
always back up your data always have
anti-virus scanner even if you don't
think you're at risk of getting viruses
the next common internet scam is one
that plays on people's curiosity it goes
something like this you're minding your
own business on Facebook or wherever and
you receive a message on social media or
an email or even a text message and it
says something like oh my gosh look at
this video of you or oh I found naked
photos of you or something like that and
a link obviously the link tries to get
you to download some sort of virus or
it's some other type of scam it's not
real and the message may even come from
a friend's account because they fell for
it and their account was then hacked to
send more messages to all their friends
and because it comes from a friend
people may be even more curious or think
it's real and even if they're suspicious
they're so worried about something
embarrassing being on the internet that
they click anyway to see what it's all
about or it may not even be about a
video it could be someone sending like a
greeting card or something like that
that's another common one so don't fall
for any of these if you see a suspicious
link then you know verify with your
friend they actually send it to you
don't necessarily just click on
everything you say all right next up we
have one that I've seen getting more and
more popular which are called binary
options which are scam websites that
disguise themselves as investing
websites but they're really just
gambling websites and as you know the
house always wins
the idea behind these binary options is
that you pay for credit on the site and
bet money for whether or not a certain
stock in the stock market will go up or
down within the next five minutes or
something like that and then they will
pay you based on whether you're right or
not whether the stock went up and down
it's like binary zero you could be right
or wrong so you may think that you have
a fifty percent chance of being right
but mathematically there's a lot of
trickery going on and based on how much
they pay you for winning and some other
factors you actually have a less than
fifty percent chance of coming out
positive in the long
it's no different than going to a casino
and betting your money there at least at
a casino you kind of go in knowing you
aren't likely to win but there's still a
chance in this case they don't tell you
that their goal you have a chance to get
this money but you're not going to in
the long run
you cannot come out ahead so avoid
binary options at all cost it's not
investing it's just a scam and there's a
lot of these shady websites that promote
this kind of stuff for people who are
too gullible next up we have another
scam that tries to target people looking
for jobs it's particularly evil so you
may see this on Craigslist especially
but they could be advertised anywhere
even like a sign posted on a lamppost or
something like that and what happens is
the applicant will be accepted for a job
and the employer will tell them that the
first thing they need to do is go buy
some materials for the work that they
need to do and then the employer will
send the new hire a check or some amount
of money or something like that
that they're supposed to use to buy some
stuff and it could be for anything like
office supplies or job specific
materials like tools party balloons
literally anything but here's the scam
the check is sink and the scammer will
tell you that oh they sent too much
money and then asked you to send some
amount back after you deposit it they'll
say something like oh I meant to only
send you $800 not a thousand can you
just wire me back the difference the 200
now you might see where this is going
the victim will deposit the check and
will show the money added to their
account and then they'll say okay I'll
wire back the $200 to the employer but a
few days later the bank will realize the
cheque is fake and then you are deducted
the full amount of the original cheque
and because you wired the money back to
the scammer you can't get that back so
now that the bank has revoked the
deposit you're out $200 there are a lot
of variations of these but the basic
thing to watch out for is if the new
employer for any job asks you to send
them money for any reason you should not
have to pay to get
a job moving on I'll talk about some
general fake email techniques that
scammers will use to try and get your
attention the actual scams behind them
could be anything but here are some red
flags to look out for one of them is if
you receive an email sending something
like you received a payment as a subject
line or here's your refund or your money
is about to expire you get the idea it's
all just BS and you can imagine that
these are purely just to grab your
curiosity enough to click on the link
and once you do it could be some fake
survey or could be to try to get you
download a virus or fish your password
something like that some other ones I've
seen are emails that where the subject
line is just your order number 1 2 3 4
or whatever so it makes you think like
Oh what did I order and you get kind of
confused interested enough to click on
it and you may even get an email says
your package could not be delivered or
you receive the package something along
those lines where you're worried that
you're not getting something that you're
supposed to and as you can imagine there
are unlimited variations the scammer
could come up with for this so just be
very suspicious of any email claiming
that you're supposed to receive
something that you weren't expecting
almost near the end we have one that I
think all of us have seen over the years
which are posts on social media claiming
that if you share this or post this
block of text you'll get something for
free for example you may have seen one
going around on Facebook claiming that
if you repost this paragraph bill Gates
will give you $5 or something ridiculous
like that I think that's a pretty common
one and sometimes they're just pranks
started by people seeing how gullible
others are and other times they're
started by companies that may be
promoting some product with viral
marketing and by saying if you post some
picture you'll get it for free and
they're just using gullible people to
promote it either way it's just a waste
of time don't believe any of these it's
just BS finally if there's the infamous
four one nine scam which is a general
term for scams where you might receive
an email claiming that you want a bunch
of money or you deserve
money and you just need to pay a small
fee to get it you know kind of like the
I'm a Nigerian prince and I just need
your help to get my millions of dollars
and you can have some of it and I just
need money to pay for the lawyer or
something like that I'm sure you know
about these and there's countless
variations to this and many of these
scammers are professional cons so they
just spend all day coming up with ways
to trick people it might not be that
obvious they could say anything from
know you've won the lottery to a distant
relative died and here's your millions
of dollars or hey turns out your your
French royalty come get the crown jewels
you know what I mean and these are
typically pretty obvious as I said but
as long as you realize that if it just
sounds too good to be true it probably
is
good to be on the lookout either way so
I think that's about it hopefully you
guys found this video helpful I'd love
to hear what you think there's some
other scams that you've heard about that
aren't that common definitely let us
know I would be interested to hear about
that and you guys can go check in the
comments and be aware of other scams and
other people have heard about and if you
want to keep watching I'll put some
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thanks for watching I'll see you next
time have a good one