October 2, 2020

Seasonal Scams You Need To Know About

Brian Online Scams Gift Cards, Holiday, Scams 0 Comments

Scams seem to be part of our every day lives now as you hear story after story of people being victimized by scammers and their carefully crafted scams. Some are easier to fall victim to than others. I recently talked about the latest bank scams as an example.

There are scams out there that generally make an appearance during a certain of the year and they are known as seasonal scams. I want to talk about some of those today such as which kind of specific scams they are and how you can avoid them. I know there tend to be more scams around the major holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years so you definitely need to be on alert around that time of year, which we are quickly approaching.

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September 26, 2020

Beware Of Online Car Buying Scams

Brian Online Scams Ads, Cars, Scams 4 Comments

I have not really talked about this, but it’s something I feel is very important. People need to be aware of online car buying scams because they are really starting to become more common. I’m looking for another car myself and I do see a lot of ads online of different vehicles with really good prices, some in fact that seem too good to be true.

I recently came across an article on one of my local news station’s website that had an article about how the Better Business Bureau is warning people about purchasing cars online and how a lot of scammers from overseas are producing a lot of these particular scams.

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September 18, 2020

My Amazon Account Has Been Locked!

Brian Online Scams Amazon, phishing, Scams 6 Comments

Back in August, I was going through my emails when I saw the title of an email that said my Amazon account has been locked. Of course when you read something like that, panic starts to set in because if you’re like me, you use Amazon quite a bit to order things and so when you see such an email, you wonder what has happened to cause your Amazon account to be locked.

The next thing you do is open the email and see a very convincing message of why your Amazon account was locked and what you can do to fix it. If you get a message like this, your impulse is to click the link in the email and go to what looks like the Amazon site and then start to type in your log in credentials. What I will tell you is that you DON’T want to do that! It’s a scam and one I will go over in full and tell you how to avoid becoming a victim of this Amazon scam making the rounds.

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September 16, 2020

Covid 19 Online Scams and How To Spot Them

Brian Online Scams Coronavirus, FTC, Scams 0 Comments

Phishing scams are very prevalent these days and I’ve been talking a lot about them. I recently talked about a pair Apple ID phishing scams I received in my email’s inbox which you can read about here. What made those emails very dangerous is that they came with attachments that the scammers wanted you to download.

The bad thing about downloading attachments from emails like that is they usually contain viruses or malware designed to either damage your computer or spy on your log in information from anything such as your bank, to PayPal, or even to Apple and then they can gain access to those things causing financial damage or worse.

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July 22, 2020

Fraud Against The Elderly: Why Are They So Vulnerable?

Brian Online Scams Elder Abuse, Scams 4 Comments

There are many scams out there that try to part you with your money or even identity. I’ve talked about some specific types of scams known as phishing scams which are generally emails made to look like they are from legitimate companies such as Apple, Netflix, PayPal, and Amazon.

A lot of times I have shown examples of those types of fraudulent emails because I myself have received them especially ones that claim to be from PayPal, one of which you can read about here. Thankfully, I haven’t fallen victim to these type of phishing scams even though I’ve gotten close several times.

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