Scam Awareness:

Here’s another email scam you might not have heard of — personal threats. They’re designed to scare the recipient to open emails or run malicious software applications.

You might be savvy not to respond to this, but you should teach your parents and young adults to be aware of this fraud.

Check out some of the subject lines these scam artists use to trick victims into opening an email:

• “We have tape of your conversation”
• “Your phone is monitored”
• “You’re being watched”
• “I’m monitoring you”
• “We’re watching you”

The email message might say:

“I am working in a detective agency. My name is not important now. I want to warn you that i’m going to watch you and monitor your telephone line. Do you want to know who paid for shadowing you? Expect my next letter.”

There are many more examples you can read at Symantec.

As always, please share your tips to keep your family safe online.
Thanks.
-BD

BD-026 - Prevent Scams Against the Elderly

Your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles are all potential targets of scam artists. You’d be shocked how even well educated and fiscally responsible people can get lured into schemes to boost their retirement savings. Read more

Article:Lottery Scam Led To Grandmother’s Suicide

Do you think I’m over-reacting when I post examples of email scams to warn your parents about?

Then read about this tragedy in New Jersey.

I am so angry right now thinking about what this women went through, the humiliation she felt, and how she died. All because some @#*! bastards took advantage of her.

Please share her tragic story with people you know.

Scam Awareness: Gold Mine Fortune

Check out this scam letter

Please don’t fall for this crap.

Be sure to talk to your parents or older relatives to help them be on the lookout for scam artists trying to prey on their kindness. As outrageous as these idiotic emails are, someone always falls for them.

Tell-tale signs:

• Ridiculously too good to be true.
• Bad grammar and punctuation.
• Conveniently too far away to verify in-person.

Just flag it as Junk Mail and delete it. Never respond!

The scam artist will con you into making a money transfer. He’ll need some amount from you as either a sign of good faith or to pay a supposed tariff or storage fee. Then you’ll never hear from him again.

Don’t be tempted by this nonsense and make sure to educate your parents and elderly relatives who might fall for something like this.

As always, please share your tips.
-BD

Scam Awareness: Sad Story From Afar

Please don’t fall for this crap…

From: Mrs Lorraine Bradley

Subject: I NEED YOUR HELP

Hello,

MY Beloved One in Christ
I sincerely apologize for not taking your permission before contacting
you while also asking you to pardon my poor English, as I am half
educated. It is rather unfortunate that I am writing this mail to you in
deep tears while lying on a hospital bed due to chronic cancer of the
lungs waiting for the time to pass unto eternal glory. My ordeal is quite
complicated but I will appreciate it if you give a little time to hear me
out.
First, I would like to start by introducing my self to you. I am Mrs.Lorraine Bradley from Cotonou, Republic of Benin in West Africa as stated above. I
was born on the 7 th of April 1952 in a small village and grew up as a
petty trader until I met my husband who was a Cocoa Trader. We
got married and lived happily together but had no children. This never
bothered us as we were good Christians and never blamed God for that.
Three years ago, I lost my husband in a motor accident while going on his
trade. His death was the beginning of my unfortunate ordeal. I had to
undergo a lot of ritual procedures based on tradition by his family
members to find out if I had a hand in his death. Part of the ritual
was being forced to drink water from his dead body. It is a common thing
that happens to African Women.
This was not all as all properties belonging to him in my possession was
taking away from me and was made an outcast. I lived alone for 3 years as
a widow with serious agony while praying to the Lord to take charge.
Unknown to his family members, my late husband had a total sum of $18,
000,000 USD (Eighteen Million United States Dollars) which was left
secretly in a Bank. His lawyer who presently resides in the Nigeria
Secretly revealed it to me.
Since I have no close family to give it to as I am the only daughter of my
parents who died long ago and do not intend to give it to the family of my
late husband, I thought it would be good to find someone reliable
who could use the money to help the poor and needy hence my contacting
you. I will appreciate if you utilize the funds properly as instructed.
Kindly get back to me as soon as possible so that I can provide you with
contact information of the Lawyer in Nigeria who you will contact for
further details to collect the funds. May God bless you as you take up
this opportunity to help the poor and the needy.
Regards,
Mrs Lorraine Bradley.

Tell-tale signs:

• Miserable life woes.
• Ridiculously too good to be true offer.
• Bad grammar and punctuation.
• Conveniently too far away to verify in-person.

Just flag it as Junk Mail and delete it.

Don’t be tempted by this nonsense and make sure to educate your parents and elderly relatives who might fall for something like this.

If you want to help others, you are better off working through reputable charities with a proven track record.

As always, please share your tips.
-BD

Scam Awareness: Customs Official From Afar

Please don’t fall for this crap…

From: Tuulik

Subject: CONTACT ME

Hello,
I am writing to request your attention to act as beneficiary of customs seized
asset.As senior customs official of my country in Eastern Europe am in good
position to facilitate the asset to you only if you will agree on the agreed
percentage to you.

Let me have your response soon and we can discuss further.

Tuulik.

Tell-tale signs:

• Ridiculously too good to be true.
• Bad grammar and punctuation.
• Conveniently too far away to verify in-person.

Just flag it as Junk Mail and delete it.

The scam artist will con you into making a money transfer. He’ll need some amount from you as either a sign of good faith or to pay a supposed tariff or storage fee. Then you’ll never hear from him again.

Don’t be tempted by this nonsense and make sure to educate your parents and elderly relatives who might fall for something like this.

As always, please share your tips.
-BD

What Companies Do With Your Credit Card Information

Last March, TJX, which operates more than 2,400 stores under names including TJ Maxx, Marshalls and A.J. Wright, acknowledged that account data for nearly 46 million consumers was stolen.

My wife shopped there once in 2005. Our bank notified me quickly after the story broke and issued us new cards. I was annoyed because that was the third time in roughly as many years that we had to get issued new cards.

The saga of bad data practices, assigning blame and denial just gets worse and worse. For example:

“Despite TJX having reported some 46 million consumers impacted by the massive data breach into its computer systems, new documents indicate that as many as 96 million consumers may have been affected, including about 29 million MasterCard victims and 65 million Visa victims, according to documents filed with the federal court in Boston Oct. 23.”

But the testimony of Visa’s Joseph Majka describes some 96 million impacted account numbers, with fraud occurring in 13 different countries.

Visa alone had calculated fraud losses at between $68 million and $83 million.

I love the convenience of carrying plastic. I use it for virtually every transaction over $10.

Reality is, every time you and I swipe a credit card at the checkout or at the pump, we have no idea where our data is being stored.

The card issuer (i.e. American Express, Visa, MasterCard) is likely to have massive data protection schemes in place. But what about the small retailer? Who has access to that data? What are they doing to protect your information?

Conversely, if you are a business owner/manager, what are you doing to protect your customer’s data? Are you collecting more than you should? How long are you keeping it? Is the data vulnerable to theft?

Take it from my experience. I’ve worked with data collection for major brands and routinely see sloppy behavior that puts personally identifiable information at risk. That behavior comes in all forms from the very top down to the bottom rung of the ladder, mainly due to ignorance. It can be as careless as emailing a spreadsheet with consumer contact info to putting files on a public file transfer Web server that many parties have unrestricted access to. So I tend to be conscientious about the overall issue of data security.

So what can you do about it?

Well, convenience comes with risk and trade offs. Simple decisions might keep you secure a bit longer.

• If the gas station seems seedy, pay with cash.
• Find out if your card company lets you create one-time use virtual card numbers for online purchases. You can limit the maximum amount that can be charged to the virtual number and set an expiration date.
• Teach your spouse, parents and children to use caution as well.

Be smart and stay safe.
-BD

Related Links:
TJX Breach More Than Twice As Bad As Reported

Data breach at TJX affected 94 mln accounts-suit

Who should store data, stores or credit card co’s?

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