Scam Averted?

There are so many scams going around these days! I think we barely avoided becoming a victim of fraud today and it was all my fault (and I knew better!).

I checked my email today and got an email from Netflix saying that hubby's credit card on the account expired and we needed to add a new card for payment. Stupidly, I clicked the link in the email and entered the new card info and the second I hit 'submit' I thought "something is not right here". While it was true that hubby's card had expired (he had just got the new card in the mail), I did several things wrong...

#1, never click through a link in an email to enter personal information. Close out the email, go online to the business website, and provide the information that way.

#2, even though the email looks legit, it may not be. This scam email said Netflix Service but other email from Netflix just says 'Netflix'.

#3, click on the email name and check it out. When I clicked on the email name 'Netflix Service' it showed the email link as some woman's name @ hotrod something .com. Definitely not Netflix.

#4, when in doubt, Google and see if this is a scam. Apparently it is and there was even a reddit thread about this exact scam. 

So after a moment of panic, I closed the email and "account" I had logged into and called the bank immediately. We had the bank cancel and reissue the card with a new number and cancel any pending charges. Then I logged into our Netflix account and changed the password then logged out (I entered the email and password through the email link so not only did the scammer get the credit card info, they got the Netflix user name and password). Next I logged into the account with the new password and put in a new credit card for them to charge.

Whew! I hoped that fixed any potential scam we could have become a victim of but we will definitely be watching our credit card accounts in the next couple of weeks. I have all of my credit reports frozen to avoid fraud so we will be freezing hubby's credit reports as well. I also haven't pulled our free annual credit reports in quite a while so I will do that too.  Aaarrggg

Don't Fall for Scams!

I don't know what the deal is but lately we (mostly hubby) has been inundated with scam phone calls.  He doesn't answer his phone anymore unless he knows who is calling him, any unknown call he lets go to voicemail.  On his voice mail today, one call telling him his computer has been hijacked (seriously???) and that his computer will be locked and he will no longer be able to access it until he calls the number they left (I'm sure they would then ask for immediate payment if he were to call back).  The second call was from the "IRS" and it said he owes back taxes and will be arrested within the hour unless he calls and pays them via Western Union.  He gets these kinds of calls on a daily basis and his sisters (also over 65 years old) say the same thing happens to them all the time.

Among other recent scams, someone called me and said there was a pending court case against me and if I didn't pay a fine immediately I would be arrested that evening.  I told the woman I would be at the courthouse in the morning so if she told me the court and docket number I would be happy to fix the problem then.  She got mad and slammed the phone down in my ear.  Then I was talking to my sister in law and she told me she just paid the annual $400 bill for her website.  When I asked what bill because I build and host both her and her husband's business websites she said she gets a bill each year for it which she pays.  I told her it was a scam and never pay anything for her website again (needless to say she was pretty upset she had been paying any bill was sent to her).  It's a very common scam.  The scammers figure that many businesses will just pay any bill they receive without a second thought which, unfortunately, many businesses do.

It used to be that many of these scams would come to people through their email but I guess that wasn't lucrative enough (plus spam blockers work pretty well) so now the focus seems to be on phone calls (the do not call list seems to be useless).  Anyway, this is just a reminder to not fall for emails/snail mails/phone calls from anyone demanding money.  Ask what agency they are calling from then hang up and look up the agency's phone number--don't use the phone number the caller gives you--and call the agency yourself if you are concerned.  Similarly you can often Google the number they call you from/leave for you to call back and will probably find many people have already reported the number as a scam.

Here's just a short list of the many scams to watch out for.

Scams

There are so many ways to separate you from your money.  There are legitimate things like a great sale or a bunch of advertising that makes you want to buy something that you may or may not need, then there are scammy things with the sole purpose of taking your money and leaving you with nothing.  There are so many scams that I could write an entire book about them, but I will use the email in the photo above as an example of one type of scam.  This email arrived yesterday and I had to laugh when I read it because it was so poorly written.  So I Googled the email associated with the email and found that it is a common phishing scam. 

Any time I get an email that I am not expecting I am always suspicious.  For any email that asks me to send money or confirm my information, I simply ignore the email and log into my real account and see what's going on that way (some websites do need me to update my info occasionally, if that's the case it will tell me that when I log into my account instead of emailing me for the info).  If I still have questions I will contact the customer service number for the actual company (using the number found on the company website, not one offered in the possible scam email).

In another incident a few months ago, a lady called and said I have a warrant out for my arrest and unless I paid with a credit card over the phone right now, the police would be sent to my house to arrest me immediately.  I had to laugh at that one too because I knew it was fake but I understand how her aggressive tone and threatening manner could have scared some innocent person into complying with her request for payment.  I asked her for the court the warrant was issued out of and the warrant number and she slammed the phone down in my ear.  There is seemingly no end to the ways that people can think of to rip other people off.  Anyway, just a short note to beware of all of the scammers out there...