internet scams the idea is not new but
these scammers are always coming up with
new techniques to try and trick people
and keep ahead of them so today we're
going to go over five different internet
scams and most of these are pretty new
that you might not have heard of before
so it should be pretty interesting and
you'll be able to avoid these in the
future
all right now first up we have a new
variation on the common windows tech
support scam so usually you know that
these people will call you up they'll
call random numbers and assuming that
most people have Windows computers
they'll say oh we're from Microsoft or
we're from Windows and say that you have
a virus on your computer whatever and
we're gonna help you fix it and of
course they install some sort of virus
on your computer that allows that them
to control it take all your info and all
that sort of thing the idea is not new
but there is one new technique that was
actually discovered by a youtuber kit
boga so this is how it goes basically
they call you up they give you the whole
spiel like I said before all your
computers on fire whatever we'll fix it
for you and then they eventually get you
to download some software log me and
Rescue which in itself is not a
malicious program it's legitimate and
that tech support people can use it to
remote in your computer and fix things
but what happens is these scammers will
tell you to go to a website and the
website is actually a real Microsoft
website which is support.microsoft.com
slash help and it can't look like a more
legitimate website URL i mean if you've
had someone on the phone saying you're
from Microsoft and they're telling you
to go to this URL you probably believe
them and the thing is that this is an
actual page that Microsoft will use as
part of their tech support and this is
just like an agreement page which then
goes to the next step which actually
allows you to connect to them but what
happens is this agreement page doesn't
really discriminate between whether
you're going to be connecting to a
Microsoft employee or some random person
who is you hosting a LogMeIn rescue
session so what happens is after you
click the accept button on this page
it'll have you enter a code and this is
a code that the scammer will provide to
you because like I said they're hosting
a connection which the software will
give them a code for the client
to connect to and then what will happen
is that client or the scam me as you
will the victim will put that in and
then that will cause their log man
software to connect to whoever has that
code whether it's a Microsoft employee
or not and in this case it is the
scammer so these people are putting this
code in thinking oh this is gonna
connect me into Microsoft when really
it's not necessarily true in this case
it's connecting them to the scammer but
they think they're safe because it's on
the Microsoft page and what's really
devious about this is even if the person
is really suspicious you know they're
like I don't know if this is really
Microsoft once they get directed to an
actual Microsoft website the thing in oh
it must be legitimate so to avoid this
scam all you really have to know is that
first of all Microsoft is never going to
just call you out of the blue saying
that your computer has a virus they
don't monitor any of that they're
certainly not going to call from Windows
and even if you bought a computer from
like Dell or HP or it or whatever they
are not going to be monitoring your
computer for viruses they don't just
call people up that's on you so unless
you specifically call into Microsoft
yourself using an official number on
Microsoft's website and maybe then if
they tell you to go to that page then
it's probably legitimate but if someone
calls out of the blue that you were not
expecting and telling you to do all this
stuff it's a scam all right
up next we have a scam where the general
idea is not new but they're always
coming up with new techniques obviously
and that is overpayment scams and the
overall outline of this scam is that for
whatever reason the scammer will get you
to accept payment for something and this
will be for a lot of different reasons
we can give examples in a minute but
basically they will pay you some amount
and it will be more than the amount that
you two agreed on and they'll say oh my
gosh we paid you too much can you just
send the difference back so maybe
they'll send you a check for $5,000 when
they only intended to send you $500 or
whatever and they'll say oh can you send
us $4,500 back via a wire transfer or
something like that and of course after
you send the money back then the bank
will realize that it was either a fake
check or a stolen credit card or
whatever and then they will deduct the
full $5,000 from you
so then
not only is the $5,000 from the check
deducted but whatever you also sent them
as reimbursement is also gone so you
might be down a ton of money and like I
said this might take several different
forms one example is a fake job offer so
you might see this on Craigslist or you
might get an email from a fake recruiter
and they'll hire you for a job and say
oh we'll give you some money for office
supplies for example and say we'll give
you $1,000 so you can go buy a computer
and all this and they'll send you a
check for $2,000 and then basically
they'll ask you oh can you just send the
difference back or something like that
and then of course you're screwed
because after you send that back the
bank will deduct it and then they
disappear you might also be selling
something online like a couch or
whatever and they'll say oh we'll send
payment ahead of time and then same deal
goes they send you too much they ask for
the difference you get the idea
another common way they'll do this is
again for whatever reason they'll be
having an excuse to pay you for
something and then they'll send you the
money but instead of saying oh we sent
you too much can you send it back
they'll say oh by the way can you just
forward the rest of this money to my
friend or whatever I'm outside the
United States and I can't send my friend
money who really needs money can you
just take my deposit and then send the
rest of them and the result is the same
you've poured this money to the friend
which is actually them and they take the
money or also as part of another fake
job scam is they'll pay you a fake check
to go buy supplies but then these
supplies are something that they tell
you to buy specifically which is like
their product so it might be some you
know BS online they're saying oh yeah we
need you to go and buy all this product
for a company we'll give you the money
to do it instead of them just buying it
directly which would make way more sense
they have these new employees by all the
product and of course the money's going
after you pay so I think you get the
idea just be careful of these online
payments where they either send you too
much or they want you to send a
different amount to other people it
might be a scam okay we're up to number
three and this is also a relatively
brand-new scam that just came out during
the Bitcoin boom of 2017 and these are
Twitter
cryptocurrency scammers but they might
appear on other social media web
as well basically what happens is a
scammer will create all these different
fake profiles meant to resemble a famous
person on Twitter or whatever and
they'll use the same profile picture the
same username and try to make the handle
as close to possible as the original as
they can then once they have these
impersonating accounts they will reply
to these different tweets that the
legitimate person makes and basically
say oh we're doing a Bitcoin giveaway or
we're doing a cryptocurrency giveaway
all you have to do is send us this
amount of Bitcoin and we'll send you
back five times the amount of Bitcoin
and you'll see this all over the place
not so much anymore but I guarantee if
Bitcoin this price starts going up again
you will start seeing these they were
all over the place in 2017 the beginning
of 2018 and after a while it almost
became funny because these scammers were
just getting so cheeky and clever that
you kind of had to laugh so here's one
example this Twitter user is cz he's the
creator of a the finance crypto currency
exchange it's really huge
anyway here he is literally tweeting
about how he doesn't want to do
giveaways because it would legitimize
and confuse people about scammers out
there doing fake giveaways so here he is
saying yeah I don't want to do giveaways
and then a scammer fake account
literally replies yet today only this
once will hold one just for you and you
would see this even in cases of the
people saying I never do a giveaway you
will never see me offer a giveaway and
then literally the scammers will reply
with that with you know what except
today today's the only exception we'll
give you a giveaway here it is and it's
a scam even trickier though that you
really had to watch out for was that
some scammers were able to hack into
actually verified accounts and then
modify the profile picture and the
username to look like the person they
were pretending to be so this example is
the monster jobs Twitter account and you
can see the handle is still the same
because if you change the handle you
lose the verified badge but they change
the profile picture and the username to
Elon Musk and then they replied with a
a scam giveaway and if you had not
looked at the username you would have
thought oh my gosh Elon Musk is doing a
giveaway and a similar thing happened to
another account where they were
impersonating the bit Rex exchange
account so they had another one they
changed the profile picture and username
to be that and replied with a scam and
in other instances it was even worse
where legitimate high profile verified
accounts were hacked such as the target
Twitter account yes the actual target
account was hacked they sent out a fake
tweet with a giveaway and then on top of
that the scammers promoted that tweet
they paid to promote that fake target
tweet to everyone and it was actually
from the target account so people
probably believed it and not only that
the same exact thing happened to the
official G suite account from Google
they did the same thing they tweeted out
hey we're doing a giveaway and then
promoted it so even more people saw it
so needless to say if you ever see a
giveaway of some sort of cryptocurrency
on the Internet be extremely skeptical
alright number four is a scam that not a
lot of people probably know goes on but
it is really really sketchy and that is
astroturfing now this isn't as much of a
scam where they're gonna take your money
and steal it from you but it is very
misleading and what astroturfing is is
when a company will hire people to
pretend to be real people online and
basically shill their product and
pretend to endorse it online and say oh
my gosh I'm just a regular person I
bought this thing and it's so great
convincing people on a number of social
media websites to buy whatever they want
that they're promoting and I actually
have a personal first-hand experience
with this that I can give you as an
example so at one point I was looking up
information about Eames chairs which are
lounge chairs on reddit and I was
looking up different posts about these
and I started noticing that pretty much
every post about these had people
talking about these different
manufacturers of replica chairs which
are basically knockoffs and every single
one would have different people
mentioning the same few companies
they're saying oh I have this chair from
this company and it's great and
eventually I started to get a little bit
suspicious so I started clicking on the
actual profiles of these people
who were leaving all these comments
saying how great these companies were
and sure enough when I went to them I
realized that these accounts were
completely fake and every single one of
the comments and posts was just purely
promoting this one product or this one
company and it was so obvious once you
looked at it look at this one for
example the user name is Richard
Smeltzer and they said 3999 dollars is
too expensive you can get it at eleven
forty nine at Barcelona designs you
scroll down on the same exact thread
another one Dayna underscore Smith are
you starting to see a pattern here oh my
gosh three thousand nine or nine dollars
horrible cost you can get best Eames
chair ottoman at you get the idea and in
this case I mean they were terrible at
it they had the same format of names it
was first name underscore last name like
come on they're not even being creative
here they probably were automatically
generated accounts and like I said when
you look at these posts it's all like
the same exact post or the same
variation of the posts only commenting
on posts about the same chair and it's
just ridiculous and there was other
companies too again on the same thread
there was the username yo underscore
buddy and this time they are promoting
Manhattan design and again you go to the
profile it's the same deal all just
shill post
pretending to be a person and pretending
to promote this product that they
supposedly bought but it's just a joke
scam needless to say I definitely did
not buy from any of those companies
after I realized what they were doing so
basically if you're ever looking for
reviews online and the person seems to
be a little bit too happy or too excited
about a product definitely look at their
post history to make sure that they are
not a shill alright finally number five
we have app store subscription scams
now scammers have been trying to take
advantage of the app store on Google and
Apple for a long time and this is not
going to change anytime soon but a lot
of times they don't just get you to buy
something but they rather try to get you
to actually subscribe and keep paying
the scammer and tricking you into that
subscription and scammers will do this
in any number of ways they're always
coming up with new ways I'll give you
one example on Android and iOS both of
them so on Android here's one where this
app basically gives you a bunch of
popups back to back and the first one
just says
can you confirm these Terms of Service
and then after you do that it pops up
another one yeah
same can you just again confirm these
Terms of Service and of course they're
hoping that you'll just keep tapping
through and then once it gets to the
third pop-up it is the Google place
subscription confirmation and they're
hoping you just tap that without even
looking and then boom you're now
subscribed and paying five bucks a week
to the scammer and notice how carefully
they laid out these pop-ups to look as
close to the subscription confirmation
as possible at the top right with the
actual confirmation it has a price and
yet in the fake pop-ups it has a green
text that says two out of three so you
know you're I if you're not looking at
it it looks like the general shape and
colors of the pop-up all the fonts are
the same really really tricky here and
again not just on Android but sometimes
these sneak through even on iOS here's
another recent version of a scam that
basically use touch ID in an extremely
clever way what would happen is this
iPhone app would basically tell the
person oh you know to set up the app we
just need to scan your fingerprint which
first all doesn't make sense
what they would tell you you know what
just hold your finger on the fingerprint
sensor on the home button for 10 seconds
and you'll be good to go meanwhile while
you're holding your finger down it will
pop up a subscription confirmation which
usually requires you to press on the
fingerprint sensor which you're already
doing so when it does this without you
even realizing it pops up confirms it
you're now paying and then it pops it
down without even potentially you
realizing it or knowing what happened
now fortunately Apple recently started
adding an extra confirmation box for
subscriptions which is good it should
help mitigate this type of scam at least
so if you even were to do this and hold
your finger down it would now pop up and
say hey do you really want to subscribe
to this and should stop it but these
scammers might even come up with
something new they might do a similar
thing as on the Android well though
they'll give you a bunch of fake pop-ups
hoping that you'll just press the
confirmation button again and not read
it and obviously these are just two
examples I'm sure that scammers are
constantly trying every single day to
come up with new clever ways to get you
to press that subscription button
without realizing it and just for fun
here's another related type scam that
has to do with subscriptions but it's
almost like a reverse subscription spit
scam and it's a phishing email that you
might receive and it will look like an
Apple receipt that says hey thank you
for subscribing to YouTube red or
whatever and your price is now $150 a
week or whatever and you're gonna think
oh my gosh I didn't want to pay for that
let me cancel that and you click the
cancel link on the email but it's not a
real email and it takes you to a fake
page that's not really Apple and it'll
ask you oh to cancel this we just need
to get all this personal information you
type it in and now the scammers happen
so clearly scammers are getting clever
and clever by the day but hopefully this
video will help you to kind of start to
think how they do so if you see
something that seems a little bit
suspicious on the internet or you get an
email or you see a pop up on an app that
doesn't seem right you'll know what to
look for now if you happen to know any
scams that you saw recently be sure to
let us know down the comments and might
be interesting to read what other other
people have to say so definitely look
down there as well if you want to keep
watching I'll put some other videos
right here you can click on including an
video I made about phone scams a little
while back so kind of similar should be
pretty interesting if you want to
subscribe and make a couple videos a
week so it should be worth it so thanks
so much for watching guys I'll see you
next time have a good one