Tell-tail signs that you are about to be scammed with an email or internet offer:
- The organization making the “offer” has no website and cannot be located with an online search
- The email or site has no “contact” information
- The email or site asks for bank account information, credit card numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers, social security, mother’s maiden name or other personal information.
- The return email address is a gmail, yahoo, hotmail, ymail, excite.com or another free email accounts. Legitimate companies can afford to buy a company domain name which creates their brand, legitimacy and trust.
- The offer asks you to follow a link to another site and log on to or create an account.
- You are advised that you have won a prize but you don’t recall entering any contest affiliated with the prize promoters.
- The email claims you won a lottery. The catch here is that legal lotteries don’t notify winners by email.
- Although the email is addressed to your email address, it winds up in your junk mail. It is usually a bulk mailer that many people worldwide probably also received.
- The email or site asks for “upfront” money to cover processing and administrative fees.
- Bait prizes are offered. However, if these are real prizes, they are often inferior in quality or falsely represented.
- You are required to travel at your own cost to receive your prize.
- The offer seems to be filled with hype and exaggerations but offers few details about how the offer works.
- The offer promises you money, jobs, prizes, lucrative business deals.
- If the offer seems too good to be true – it is!
Good resources to check out the legitimacy of your “offer” or where to report fraud:
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/contact.shtm
Internet Crime Complaint Center (http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx)
Complaints against foreign companies http://www.econsumer.gov/english/
FBI http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud/internet_fraud/internet_fraud
scam.com
whois.com (whois lookup)
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