The internet makes our lives easier in so many ways. We can connect with friends wherever they are in the world, and buy anything we want in one simple click. But with great technological advancements come risks too. And despite widespread knowledge about general internet safety, online scams are as prevalent as they ever have been. Here’s how to spot the signs of an online scam.
Online scams are part of cybercrime, where people use the internet and computers to commit crime. There are many ways in which cybercrime can be committed, but most involve scamming innocent people into believing they are dealing with a legitimate business or person.
Phishing emails are a common tool of cybercriminals. This is when an email is sent to a person, under the guise of being a real company or person. The idea of the email is to trick a person into giving away personal information. This may be done by making the individual believe they are making a legitimate purchase, so they willingly provide their credit card details.
If someone clicks on a phishing link, it can also be used to launch ransomware, where a person can be intimidated into paying the fraudsters money. It is estimated that 75% of companies in the United States have been the victims of phishing attacks.
Online scams can also come in the form of fake online shops, where you pay money for something that never arrives, while your credit card details are stolen too.
Here are some of the key signs to watch out for when it comes to online scams.
Spot a Fake Email
Scam emails often have certain characteristics that seem suspicious, although sometimes you have to look closely to spot them.
If you receive an email from someone you don’t know out of the blue, spend some time analyzing the email to see if it could be suspicious. Someone who tries to encourage you to click on a link or download something on first contact could be a scammer, so don’t click on anything within the email. Have a close look at the sender’s email address – does it follow the proper format of the company they say they are from? Search for the company email and have a look if you’re not sure, but don’t navigate to the website by clicking on any links within the email.
Also look to see if the email has any spelling mistakes. Of course anyone can make a spelling mistake, but if the correspondence you receive is supposedly the e-newsletter of a known company, misspellings or strange spellings are rare. Generally speaking, any email from an unknown sender where they are trying to get you to do a certain action could be a scam. Commands such as ‘click here’ or ‘pay now’ should be handled with caution if you don’t know the sender.
Sometimes fraudsters will hack the email account of one of your friends and send scam emails that way. The idea is that you’re more likely to engage with it because you know the sender. So if you receive an email from a friend that seems unusual, treat it in the same way as you would receiving an email from an unknown sender.
Always have it in mind that if you do click on a scam link, you are leaving yourself open to personal data leaks and malware attacks. Even if you can call your bank quickly or have a good data backup plan in place (and you should!), you really want to avoid being a victim in the first place.
Spot a Fake Online Shop
If you want to buy something from a website you have never used before, spend some time researching the company. Search to see if they are a registered company, and try to find the company’s terms and conditions on their website. The terms and conditions section of a site should always have an actual office address that you can look up to see if it is legitimate.
Do some research on the internet about the company to see what kind of reviews people are leaving. Try to find reviews on a few different websites that you trust, and don’t rely on any testimonials that have been published on the company’s website itself.
It is also always worth checking that the website URL matches the proper URL for a company. Some scammers have been known to create replica websites of well-known brands, in a way to make people feel secure about using the site. You can find the official URL of a company on any official company registration records. You could also look at the company’s profile on different social media websites. You can do this to check the website URL, but also see if real customers seem to be engaging with the company.
