Is This A Scam Or Not(Identify Scams) — CIO Review Magazine

Jack Mathew
6 min readJan 23, 2020
Scam alert

It is easy to be scammed by the use of the latest technologies. If you’re not aware of how people try to scam you then we can easily fall into it. Nowadays there are many types of scams happening over the internet.

Warnings For Money Scams

Anybody can fall victim to a web scam. We all lead busy lives and we’re continually bombarded with “approaches” from scammers — it only takes a flash of inattention to fall under a trap.

How are you able to stay safe, when thieves are increasingly sophisticated and convincing? the simplest thing to try to do is pause before sending money and investigate where it’s really going. Knowing about common warning signs of cash scams can assist you spot trouble before it’s too late.

If you see any of the red flags listed below, proceed with extreme caution. They don’t necessarily mean you’re handling a scammer, but it’s worth slowing down before you spare your money. Here are the common signs of cash scams.

Wiring Money

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

If somebody asks you to wire money, take care. There are no banks to reverse a wire transfer — once the cash leaves your account, it’s gone, and you can’t ask the bank to “undo” the transfer. Thieves love wire transfers because the cash is out there for withdrawal soon (before everybody figures out what they’re up to).1

There are a couple of legitimate situations where wire transfers add up, but they’re a nasty idea if you’re unsure who you’re handling. Using your Mastercard to send the wire only makes things worse.

Unsolicited Approaches for Money
It’s not uncommon to urge an email promising vast sums of cash (or even a couple of bucks) for small or no effort. Sometimes these messages appear as if they were sent to you mistakenly — and you’ve somehow had the great luck to stumble into an incredible situation.2

If something sounds too good to be true and it’s coming from somebody you don’t know, it’s almost certainly a scam. Why would that imprisoned prince search you out and get in touch with you? If somebody features a great “business opportunity,” why don’t they only roll in the hay themselves rather than dalliance and money scouring the web for more investors?

Selling for love or money Besides Cash
If you’re selling something that you’ve advertised online, be wary of accepting anything but cash as payment. Scammers have various ways to cheat you out of cash (when you’re alleged to be the one collecting money — funny how that happens).

For example, they’ll try the classic cashier’s check scam or they’ll invite your checking account information under the pretext of sending an electronic payment or wire transfer (then they’ll use that information to urge into your bank account). If a buyer can’t show up in-person with cash, there’s probably a far better buyer out there.3

Handling Payments for somebody Else
There’s no legitimate reason for you to handle payments for somebody else. If you’re asked to deposit money into your account and forward it to somebody else, you’re likely involved during a scam. When you’re trying to find work and these “jobs” come up, it’s hard to pass up the chance, but moving on is your best bet. At best, you’re being found out for a scam; at the worst, you’re involved something illegal (such as money laundering).4

Threats and Hyperbole
Scammers’ goal is to take advantage of your hopes and fears until you fork over your cash. to require advantage of your fears, they could tell you that you’ll attend jail, lose your job, or somehow face humiliation if you fail to form “required” payments (none of which they will accomplish legally). If something sounds all bad or all good, you’re not hearing the reality .5

Unsecured Sites

unsecured sites

Look for the lock (or “https” within the address bar) when doing anything sensitive online. If you provide personal or financial information to an unsecured site, it is often stolen easily — actually, it probably is being stolen because you’re already at an imposter site. Any reputable bank, depository financial institution, or online shopping site would require a secure connection.

If your connection isn’t secure, you would possibly be caught during a so-called “man within the middle” attack, during which your usernames and passwords are collected for later use.

Emails That Look almost Right

email scams

Sometimes you’ll find everything you would like to understand in an email. If you notice bad spelling and grammar, you would possibly be handling a foreign phishing scam (a sort of fraud where a user’s personal data, like passwords and Mastercard info, is stolen through a transmission like email). It also helps to seem closely at any links (when you hover your mouse over them before clicking). Do they are going where you think that they ought to go?

How to Handle Online Scams

online scams

If you see any of the warning signs above — but you continue to want to maneuver forward — how are you able to do so safely? Get more information. Research the person or business in question until you’re one hundred pc certain that you’re not getting ripped off. Just remember that scammers are often very convincing and really patient — they’ll talk with you for hours (over many weeks or months) to form you are feeling comfortable.

Talk about things with a lover or relative, and appearance for similar stories online — you would possibly be surprised at what you discover. Check message boards in your community if it looks like an area thing, but confine mind that a lot of internet money scams are tried-and-true hustles, sometimes conducted from distant (so you’re likely to seek out good information with a general internet search).

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