Latest Scamming Format: Criminal minds can reach these days further than before, into our private lives, our homes, and work offices. And there is little we can do about it.
Scamming has come to stay in our society, and people are becoming victims every day. For information about the Latest Format for Scamming, read through this article carefully.
Scammers are experts at shifting tactics and changing their messages to catch you off guard. We, humans, can become an easy target for malicious actors who want to steal our most valuable personal data.
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A scam is a term used to describe any fraudulent business or scheme that takes money or other goods from an unsuspecting person.
- Romance Scams
- Account takeover
- New account fraud
- Transaction fraud
- Phishing Email Scams
- Fake Antivirus Software Scam
- Job Scams
- Coupon Scams
- Advertisement Scams
- Bank Loan or Credit Card Scam
- Lottery Scam
- Venmo Scams
Latest Scamming Format 2021: With the world becoming more connected thanks to the Internet, online scams have increased, and it’s often up to you to help stay cautious with people on the Internet.
Latest Scamming Format 2021
1. Romance Scams
If you know someone who has been the victim of a romance scam, then you know that these scams can feel particularly scary, as the situation has financial and emotional implications. That’s why romance scams have topped our list as the scam to be on the lookout for in 2021.
To enact a romance scam, a scammer will create a fake identity through social media profiles. They’ll locate a victim and begin messaging them, getting to know the victim personally. The conversations, and sometimes even the feelings that develop between the scammer and their victim, are real.
2. Account takeover
Account takeover is essentially online identity theft. It involves criminals who pose as you to gain access to one or more of your accounts, and then use that access to carry out unauthorised transactions.
For example, a fraudster could get into your current account using stolen credentials and use it to make transfers to other accounts. They may also change your account details to lock you out or cover their tracks, while some criminals will sell access to your account on to other fraudsters.
Payment fraud solutions company Sift calls account takeover the ‘fraudster’s weapon of choice’ and says attempts rose 282% between 2019 and 2020.
Using biometric security such as Touch ID on Apple’s iPhones or the equivalent fingerprint locks on Android devices can make things more difficult for fraudsters and provide you with a layer of defence against account takeover fraud.
3. New account fraud
Like account takeover fraud, criminals will use stolen credentials to open new accounts in your name. For example, a fraudster could get hold of your personal information on the dark web before using it to bypass identity verification checks and open a new loan account.
According to American risk-management specialist RSA, almost half (48%) of all fraud involves accounts that are less than 24 hours old.
It is important to be extra vigilant with your personal information, whether that be correspondence your put in the bin or data you enter onto a website. Documents should be shredded if possible, and you should check the authenticity of any site before providing personal information.
Experts also recommend you take care when posting information on social media, as a skilled fraudster could populate a fake profile using photographs and other details you provide.
4. Transaction fraud
This kind of fraud sees fraudsters making purchases with stolen payment information. The information is typically gained via phishing attacks that trick consumers into thinking they’re dealing with a trusted company and willingly sharing the details with a fraudster.
With more of our everyday lives playing out online because of coronavirus and stay-at-home orders, transaction fraudsters have more opportunities than ever to con those who let their guards down.
The best way to protect against phishing attacks is to check emails that claim to be from reputable senders carefully. Inspect the URLs behind hyperlinks by hovering over them with your cursor and be suspicious of emails that contain obvious spelling errors.
If contacted by phone, never share personal financial information with the caller. Instead, telephone the company using its official contact number to verify the call.
5. Phishing Email Scams
More than one-third of all security incidents start with phishing emails or malicious attachments sent to company employees, according to a new report from F-Secure.
Phishing scams are based on communication made via email or on social networks. In many cases, cybercriminals will send users messages/emails by trying to trick them into providing them valuable and sensitive data ( login credentials – from a bank account, social network, work account, cloud storage) that can prove to be valuable for them.
6. Fake Antivirus Software Scam
We all saw at least once this message on our screens: “You have been infected! Download antivirus X right now to protect your computer!” Many of these pop-ups were very well created to look like legitimate messages that you might get from Windows or any other security product.
7. Job Scams
As if searching for a new job wasn’t hard enough, we now have job scams to be on the lookout for. In the hopes of stealing your identity or cheating you out of money, a job scam occurs when a scammer poses as an employer.
To bring in victims, they will post fake job listings on job-seeking websites, such as Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn.
The best way to avoid job scams is to know the warning signs. We implore the golden rule of scam prevention here once more: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
8. Coupon Scams
Similar to an advertisement scam, a coupon scam starts on social media. A promoted post in user’s feeds lures them in with an unbelievable deal at a big box retailer, such as Walmart or Kohl’s. The coupons will typically be for ideal offers, like 50% off of everything, or a $75 coupon.
When the user clicks through the post, they’ll be prompted to answer a survey. The survey collects personal information, such as name, telephone number, email address, and home address. This information is exactly what the scammer is after.
9. Advertisement Scams
As consumers, we’re used to seeing eerily specific ads on social media. One Google search for “best RFID wallets” and we see wallet ads all over Facebook for weeks. Scammers know this and have started to take advantage of it with advertisement scams.
Targeting social media users, scammers will use fake advertisements to entice people in signing up for free services or to purchase free or discounted products.
10. Bank Loan or Credit Card Scam
People can be easily scammed by “too good to be true” bank offers that might guarantee large amounts of money and have already been pre-approved by the bank.
Though it may seem unlikely for people to get trapped by this scam, there’s still a big number of people who lost money by paying the “mandatory” processing fees required by the scammers.
11. Venmo Scams
Venmo is a mobile payment app that allows users to transfer funds to others from within the app. In just the third quarter of 2019, Venmo handled around $27 billion of payment volume.
Venmo ranks as one of the most popular peers to peer payment apps and can be found on an average user’s smartphone. To evade this scam, you’ll need to be able to identify and ignore these suspicious text messages.
12. Lottery Scam
This is another classic Internet scam that doesn’t seem to get old. A lottery scam comes as an email message informing you that you won a huge amount of money and, in order to claim your prize or winnings, you need to pay some small fees.
Since it addresses some of our wildest fantasies, such as quitting our jobs and living off the fortune for the rest of our lives, without ever having to work again, our imagination falls prey easily to amazing scenarios someone can only dream of.
13.Cryptocurrency/Bitcoin scams
Bitcoin scams come in various formats and it isn’t far from the truth that as the cryptocurrency sphere experiences advancement, more scams continually emerge, causing unsuspecting Bitcoin users to lose their hard-earned bitcoins to scammers.
Quite obviously, the presence of fake wallet apps now constitutes the various scams used in tricking people into fake transactions and ultimately defrauding them. Meanwhile, it’s noteworthy that the popular Apple store has been discovered to host fake bitcoin wallet apps looking very identical to some of the widely used ones such as BreadWallet, Green Address and Coinbase.
One can imagine the number of innocent persons who might have been scammed before the Bitcoin community’s intervention and resolve for such apps to be removed.
As a novice in the cryptocurrency sphere, you could fall victim of fake bitcoin transactions but to avoid that, here are the top safety precautions you should be conversant with:
Read the Reviews Attached to the Wallet App
To ensure you’re making safe Bitcoin transactions on your wallet app, it’s advisable that you check the reviews attached to a particular wallet app before downloading it. Perhaps, you’ve just found a wallet app on Apple store or Google Play and you feel it’s the exact app recommended by a Bitcoin expert.
You may download the app from Google Play but do well to check the app’s rating as well as its number of downloads. Indeed, a wallet app with plenty of downloads, a considerably high rating and several positive (user) reviews is pretty safe for Bitcoin transactions.
Visit the Wallet’s Official Website for the App Link
Another safety measure regarding Bitcoin wallet apps is getting the link for a particular Bitcoin wallet app from the wallet’s official website. You’re strongly advised to be cautious as unauthorized wallet makers go as far as producing a Bitcoin wallet that looks exactly like the original wallet you’re looking for.
Ensure you aren’t being redirected to the site of a fake Bitcoin wallet. And to keep up this safety measure, you really have to get the actual link to your chosen Bitcoin wallet app. Do well also to know the appropriate link of the Bitcoin wallet. You should look out for differences or omissions possibly signaling that the link you’ve encountered is different from the original link of the official wallet app.
Avoid Apps Not Listed on Bitcoin.org
Bitcoin.org is likely where you should first head in your attempt to download a reliable Bitcoin wallet. In the instance that you’re a beginner with little or no experience of Bitcoin, do well to avoid wallet apps not listed on Bitcoin.org.
Simply, Bitcoin.org is a site duly regulated through the concerted effort of the entire Bitcoin community. Although Bitcoin.org isn’t Bitcoin’s official website, it is really a reliable website with a list of Bitcoin wallets considered secure and genuine by the larger Bitcoin community.
If you’re really new to Bitcoin, you could be easily tricked into downloading a fake Bitcoin wallet. This is because such fake wallets usually carry logos and names very similar to those of the original wallets listed on Bitcoin.org. Therefore, you’re strongly advised to scrutinize the Bitcoin wallets you see on Google Play or better still, you should stick only to the wallet apps on Bitcoin.org.
Stay away from Third-Party Wallet Apps
Third-party wallet apps are those apps with entities that reserve the right to access your private keys. Many of the wallets on Apple store or Google Play are regulated by third-party entities and this is why it could be risky to hold your bitcoins in such wallets.
Provided you aren’t holding your bitcoins in a third-party wallet, you can rest assured that you’re the only one with unrestricted access to your private keys. This way, you’re pretty sure of performing safe transactions and avoiding losing your bitcoins to scammers.
Conclusion
It is undeniable that there are plenty of online scams as well as Bitcoin scammers lurking around the Internet but if you must save your face the mishap of falling into their tricks, it’s advisable that you keep to the safety precautions outlined in this post.
