Fraud Tip of the Day - February 14
Valentine's Day Scams
Valentine's Day is a day of romance and expressions of love but if you're not careful you could fall victim to a Valentine's Day scam.
Valentine's Day Phishing Scams
As February 14th approaches we come to expect marketing pitches and eCards to arrive in our mailboxes related to Valentine's Day. Crooks are well aware of this and they use this time of year to trick the unwary into divulging their personal and financial information. One such phishing scheme involves an email indicating that the flowers you ordered for your sweetie won't be delivered unless you log in and re-enter your credit card
What are the chances that a significant number of these messages are going to reach people that have ordered flowers? No one wants their loved one to think they've forgotten them on Valentine's Day! If you click the link in that email and enter your credit card number you could have a real problem once you get your next statement. Even if you think a message like this is real, go directly to the florist's website or call them on the phone.
The same rules apply all year long. Treat any email message like this skeptically and always go directly to the website rather than clicking a link in an email no matter how legitimate it seems.
Online Dating Scams
As Valentine's Day approaches many singles turn to online dating websites to find true love. What many find is anything but. Scam artists often create fake profiles designed to match a certain kind of person, the kind of person they think will fall for their ploy. Once they make contact with you the scam begins. Whether you are chatting in a chat room or instant messages or through emails it slowly becomes clear that you've hit the jackpot. This new person you've met is perfect in every way. They have the same likes and dislikes as you and most importantly, they really dig you.
It's not hard to see how this works. They let you tell them something first. Agreeing with whatever you say is simple. Someone that does this for a living is going to be very good at it so it will be hard to detect unless you are skeptical by nature. Anyone looking for love online should always be skeptical.
What happens is that the criminal is slowly grooming you, trying to develop enough trust in them that you won't notice when they bilk you out of your money. This attempt will come when it's time to finally meet. Your true love won't have enough money for the trip and need you to wire funds for a plane ticket. Another common variation on this scam is that either your online paramour becomes sick or has a relative or child that needs medical attention. This works well because the money is needed quickly and you won't have time to think about it. Time is of the essence. If you can't help someone might die.
Use your head if this ever happens to you. This is a very old and common scam. If you fall for it you will have to deal with both heartache and wounded pride.
Valentine's Day eCard Trickery
Be careful opening eCards on the web! If you have downloaded all of your patches and feel that your computer is safe you may have forgotten the biggest vulnerability: you! One message I received directed me to click a link which took me to a reasonable facsimile of American Greeting's website. Once there I was presented with a message telling me that I didn't have the latest Flash player and if I wanted to view the eCard I would have to install it. I didn't fall for it. For one, the web address or URL of the website was close but not identical to americangreetings.com and I pay careful attention to details like that. Second, I am positive that my Flash player is up-to-date and no phony eCard website is going to fool me into thinking otherwise. Third, the email message that told me to retrieve my eCard didn't have my name on it which tells me that it could have gone out to millions of people in the hopes that a few might fall for it.
All of those are red flags. If you didn't pay attention to them and clicked the link you became the weak link in the security chain and might have installed a trojan on your computer. Trojans are little programs that can give someone besides you full access to your computer and the files on it. You certainly don't want that to happen. So pay attention when you click links like this in your email messages or you might end up providing a window into your computer that anyone can crawl through.
