On-Line Scams To Avoid In 2022

The new year isn’t even a month old but the scammers are back, heck, they’ve never gone away. That’s the bad news, the even worse news is that they are more sophisticated than ever. It would take a week and then some to go through them all, but here are a few in no particular order.

Phone scams: these are surprisingly common. You receive a phone call ostensibly from your bank or a bank, from Amazon, or even from a cyber security company informing you your account has been hacked. Don’t be surprised if you are addressed by your name and the caller knows details about you. People have been tricked into giving away their passwords or account details, sometimes they will pay for an imaginary service. Just as you shouldn’t click on a link in an e-mail, so you shouldn’t return a phone call or phone your bank immediately afterwards. Some of these scammers have figured out how to trick you into believing you are speaking to the bank when in fact you are speaking to a co-conspirator. This is done by keeping the line open.

With regard to clicking links, you may download malware onto your machine, or be directed to a fake website that looks like the real thing.

Ever heard of sextortion? Here is a recent case reported by the local press in Bracknell on January 16. It requires only a nanogramme of common sense to avoid these. Unless you are totally shameless, don’t become embroiled in intimate conversations with strangers on-line, especially attractive ones of either sex.

eBay can be an excellent website for buying quality goods cheap – but not memory sticks! – and for selling unwanted goods. Many ordinary people make good money trading there, but there are many ways to be ripped off.

Five years ago a documentary called The eBay Scammers was broadcast. It was uploaded to YouTube in August 2020 and has been watched over half a million times. Many eBay traders have also uploaded videos detailing their personal experiences of being scammed; thankfully, many got their money back, but here are a few things to look out for.

Counterfeit goods: often heavily discounted, bear in mind that time honoured saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Counterfeit goods are also offered for sale on Amazon and other sites. While there is no 100% way to avoid such a scam, eBay allows buyers to rate their purchases, so if a seller has been active for five years and has impeccable purchaser feedback, you are probably safe.

Phishing scams: again, these are not unique to eBay, but just because you buy or sell on the site doesn’t mean that eBay or Paypal e-mail is genuine.

Buyers can also scam eBay sellers; one way is by claiming to have received an empty box or damaged goods which may be a much cheaper product substituted for the one received. Again, you will find many videos on YouTube by people who have been the victims of such scams who will tell you how to avoid them or minimise the risk. A simple way is to video yourself packing the parcel. One user who sells extremely high value ephemera said he prefers to deliver in person, even if he has to catch a plane.

The UK’s Action Fraud website has an alphabetical list of frauds from “account takeover” to work from home scams. Account takeover, a variation of identity theft, can be among the most devastating of scams. There are ways to avoid this, one of the best is to keep your on-line banking to an absolute minimum, something that can be difficult in rural areas or even in the heart of the city as more and more bank branches are closed.