“Limited Offer”! “Buy Now”! “Its now or never”! These superlatives screaming for your attention on the online world may tempt you to sign up for some too-good-to-be true looking schemes! Some of you may have already burnt a hole on your plastics signing up for some of these instant satisfaction promising ads or banners.
In spite of the fact that most internet users are aware of these popular, many fall into the traps of these tricksters and get robbed of precious money and information everyday. Make sure you are not tempted to sign up for one.
Here are some scams which actually look so convincing that smartest of people end up falling for them.
1. Online Auction Scams: Based on the famous online auction sites, many scamming websites have now come up which actually make the users pay for certain goods and then do the disappearing act with the user losing his/her money and not getting anything in return. Sometimes, people do get the products but these are inferior in quality from the one promised on the website.
2. Phishing Scams: In such cases, people get an email which seems like it has been sent by their bank and states that there has been an identity theft and the person needs to login to the account and verify the information provided. Though these emails might seem authentic but the website where the information has to be entered is fake and you would actually be giving away precious details to criminals.
3. Nigerian 419 Letter: This is another popular scam doing the rounds of the internet where a high ranking official claims to have embezzled government money to feed the poor and asks for your assistance to transfer the money and in turn would promise to pay you a percentage. But you would have to pay lots of money before you get the promised amount, which you would never get.
4. “Won Electronic Goods Scams: Sometimes users get an email informing them of having one a cool gadget and are then taken over to a website to enter their card details to help the company in shipping the gadget. No goods are shipped. Instead criminals get hold of your card details.
5. Advance Fee Scams: In this case, some person promises you a product by asking you to pay some fees in advance. In some cases, people receive emails saying they have won money and it would be shipped to them once they pay the taxes.
6. Check Overpayment Scams: These scams occur when a person places an ad for selling or renting something. In such cases, he might get a check that has been made for an amount more than the requested price. The sender then requests you to transfer the balance to his account. This is very fishy and in case you fall for it, you would end up losing money as the check would definitely bounce.
7. Monetary Request from Friends Online: If you get any request for money from your friends on a social networking site, make sure that you don’t fall for it as this would mostly be a scam. Many scammers engage in these.
8. Lottery Scam: If you ever receive an email saying you have won an unimaginable amount of money in some lucky draw or lottery, so not fall for it and send them any money as these scams are quite common.
9. Job Scams: There are many phony online sites which offer job to people at an unheard of salary and ask them to provide their bank details to send them their salary in advance. This is another scam and people generally end up losing money from their account.
10. Disaster Relief Scam: Whenever a natural disaster strikes somewhere, tricksters set up fake charity institutes to rob citizens of their money.
Remember there are no short cuts to success. So, beware of these online scams that lure you with their promises and phony testimonials.
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