Stimulus checks are 'stimulating' scammers
Lois Collins
Throw in a rough economy with rising fuel and food prices and people who are dishonest can't seem to help themselves.
In the past few days, I've received dozens of e-mail notices that there are disputes pending with my eBay account and I've got to straighten them up right away or lose my fine standing in the online auction community. I must not, they counsel sternly, ignore the problem.
And ignore it is my intended course of action, since someone's obviously on a phishing expedition. I don't have an eBay account attached to the e-mail address that's being bombarded, so it's pretty simple to figure out that the messages are bogus, the disputes nonexistent. If I did, I'd still ignore it. I'm naturally suspicious and certainly not inclined to part with personal and financial information. But I know several people who have been taken in by the official-looking messages.
I've also received more notifications than usual, again by e-mail, that there have been security breaches with my bank accounts — a problem that's apparently so severe it reaches even into accounts I don't have at banks with whom I have never had a relationship. Thank heavens for that. The claims on nonexistent bank accounts make it easy to assume the ones that appear to come from banks I do use are not real, either.
But it's disconcerting that most of the messages look absolutely flawless, the logos exactly like those of the financial institutions they pretend to represent. And phishers and scammers have become so sophisticated over the years that they no longer send out "important" or "official" notifications in poor or broken English, which used to be a handy tool to distinguish them from something that might be legit.
Con artists are honing their skills, and their stories become more plausible all the time. That means we all have to become more cautious in order to thwart them.
A friend of mine who works in finances says the first rule to avoid e-mail-based rip-offs is to ignore that kind of message. If there's a chance that a message is legitimate, you don't want to check it out using any of the contact points provided in the e-mail. Don't click on a link. Don't fill out the appeal form. Don't hit reply. Don't unsubscribe.
Don't call the phone number provided in the e-mail. Instead, find your contact information using legitimate outside sources, like the phone book or your bank statement or other correspondence from the creditor that you know is real because it's part of your routine interaction with the company. Or go to a local branch office. It's easy to fake an e-mail, but not a building.
We all know this stuff. We've been warned repeatedly against giving personal information over the phone, for instance. The trouble is, it's instinctive to respond and try to dispute something that's simply wrong. The creeps sending the messages and making the calls know that.
The same kind of caution should be taken with solicitations when there's calamity of some sort. During Hurricane Katrina, for instance, a lot of legitimate and kind-hearted efforts sprang up to help those whose lives were disrupted by the storm. So did scams.
It has become absolutely predictable. So should we.
Deseret News staff writer Lois M. Collins may be reached by e-mail at lois@desnews.com
Recent comments
I would agree that there probably have been some "superrich&...
To RangerGordon | May 8, 2008 at 6:18 p.m.
Ripoff: Just consider it a down payment.
The government...
RangerGordon | May 8, 2008 at 4:44 p.m.
It is interesting that you begin the story about fraud by indicating...
Stimulus is a ripoff | May 8, 2008 at 3:49 p.m.
