n Don't Be Scammed
THE PITCH
Credit-related Schemes:
You are promised a credit card regardless of your credit history, for an advance fee. Or, you are promised credit card protection or credit repair services, also for a fee. You pay, but the card or service is never delivered.
Magazine Sales Scams:
You are offered a magazine subscription at a very low price by someone who claims to work for the magazine company. The price is misresented and is actually much higher, or the magazine is never delivered.
Investment Fraud:
You are invited to participate in an investment opportunity and promised spectacular profits with no risk. Instead of making money, you lose it.
Overpayment Scams:
You advertize something you want to sell, and a potential buyer offers to purchase it. The buyer sends a check for more than the asking price and asks you to wire back the difference. you do, but the buyer's check bounces.
Work-at-Home Scams:
Advertisements promise big earnings for people who want to work at home. You send a check for training or materials and receive a kit with cheap craft materials and discover there are no clients to pay for your work.
Vacations/Travel Fraud:
You accept an offer for a free or very cheap travel package but end up paying hidden costs, such as reservation fees or taxes, or listening to a high-pressure sales ptich for timeshare or club membership.
Phishing:
You get an email or pop-up message that says your account must be updated immediately or it will be closed. You click on a link to a website that looks like it belongs to your bank or other institution and "update" your account by entering personal identifying information. Soon you discover you are a victim of identity theft.
(web guy note: this happend frequently with eBay and payPal.)
Click here for good article from the Oregonian.
Pharming:
Also called domain spoofing, this technique is used by criminals to redirect Web traffic from a legitimate server to their own server, where they can steal any personal information that the user types in. Pharmes "poison" the Domain Name Service in order to "fool" a user's browser into linking to a bogus website.
Nigerian Money Scam:
You are contacted by someone from Nigeria and offered millions of dollars if you will transfer money from a foreign bank to your bank account for safekeeping. When you agree, you are asked to pay huge tranfer fees or legal expenses but receive no money.
Prize and Sweepstakes Scam:
You are told that you have won a fabulous prize but must pay something or pay taxes up front in order to claim it. The prize is a cheap trinket, worth far less than the money you paid to claim it.
Froeign Lotteries Scam:
You are offered tickets to enter a foreign lottery and send money, but either the lottery doesn't exist or the tickets never arrive. It is illegal to promote a foreign lottery by telephone or mail in the United States.
Pyramids and Multilevel marketing:
For a fee, you are promised big profits in excahnge for recruiting new members. Plans that promise frofits for recruitment of members rather than for selling foods and services are illegal and usually collapse.
Scholarship Scams:
A company guarantees scholarship money for an upfront fee, buy it only helps locate scholarships rather than awarding them.
Charity Scams:
A natural disaster is dominating the news and you get a letter /email/phone call asking you to donate funds to help its victims. You send money, but the victims never receive your donation or receive only a tiny portion - the rest goes to cover "administrative costs", like saleries.
Tsunami Relief Fraud Alert
Katrina Fraud
Bogus Merchandising Scams:
You purchase something advertised for sale on the internet or through a telemarketing call. You pay for the merchandise, buy never receive it or receive an inferior or counterfeit product in its place.
Telephone Cramming:
Unauthorized charges for goods or services appear on your phone bill, but you miss seeing them because your phone bill is complicated with authorized charges such as voice mail and internet services.
Telephone Slamming:
Your telephone service is switched from your current companyu to another one withour your knowledge or permission, resulting in higher charges for long distance or other services.
Go here to see where to
report Fraud online
HOME

 


 
DON'T BE SCAMMED
 

 
Scams and schemes are a criminal's "bread and butter.
If you have a computer, a telephone, or a mailbox,
you could become a victim.
Your best defense is to know a scam when you see (or hear) one.
To the left are a few common scams that criminals pitch to
innocent people every day:

   Go here to see where to report Fraud online

   OSU Federal Fraud & Spam info
 
   If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
         Click here for more
 
        back to internet security ]

 

 

Thanks to the
National Crime Prevention Council,
and McGruff, the Crime Dog

 


 


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