Protect yourself from online scam advices by MyTrendingStories writing platform? Free trial offer! (Just pay forever) How it works: You see an Internet offer for a free one-month trial of some amazing product—often a teeth whitener or a weight-loss program. All you pay is $5.95 for shipping and handling. What’s really going on: Buried in fine print, often in a color that washes into the background, are terms that obligate you to pay $79 to $99 a month in fees, forever. The big picture: “These guys are really shrewd,” says Christine Durst, an Internet fraud expert who has consulted for the FBI and the FTC. “They know that most people don’t read all the fine print before clicking on ‘I agree,’ and even people who glance at it just look for numbers. So the companies spell out the numbers, with no dollar signs; anything that has to do with money or a time frame gets washed into the text.” That’s exactly what you’ll see in the terms for Xtreme Cleanse, a weight-loss pill that ends up costing “seventy-nine dollars ninety-five cents plus five dollars and ninety-five cents shipping and handling” every month once the 14-day free trial period ends or until you cancel. Avoidance maneuver: Read the fine print on offers, and don’t believe every testimonial. Check TinEye.com, a search engine that scours the Web for identical photos. If that woman with perfect teeth shows up everywhere promoting different products, you can be fairly certain her “testimonial” is bogus. Reputable companies will allow you to cancel, but if you can’t get out of a “contract,” cancel your card immediately, then negotiate a refund; if that doesn’t work, appeal to your credit card company. Not all websites will lose you money–Youtube can make you a fortune.
Latest news with MyTrendingStories online publishing: Skimming is the act of stealing information directly from the card itself. Skimmers can be placed on card readers in public locations like a gas pump or ATM. Card skimmers have only gotten more sophisticated over the years. With new technology, criminals have shifted to using card shimmers. Shimmers are paper-thin devices that are jammed into a card reader, usually at an ATM or gas pump, to steal the data from a chip card. A shimmer is hard to see with the naked eye, but a telltale sign of a shimmer is a feeling of tightness when sliding the card in-and-out of the reader. If there is unusual friction, even slightly, there may be a shimmer in the ATM or gas pump. If you suspect shimming is happening at an ATM or gas pump, report the incident to the establishment and replace your debit or credit card. It’s also a good idea to cup one hand over the other when typing in your PIN at an ATM or gas pump.
MyTrendingStories anti-scam advice: The old phrase “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is” certainly applies to shopping online. Fake retail websites aim to steal your hard-earned money by pretending to be legitimate. Pay attention to these red flags when shopping online. How can you protect yourself from these phony sites? Use Google’s Transparency tool to check site status or the BBB’s Scam Tracker. Only purchase items online using a secured network Confirm that the web address begins with “HTTPS,” – the ‘s’ stands for secure. Never store your card number in a browser, website, or mobile app. You’re probably familiar with phishing—fake emails that claim to come from legitimate companies—but have you heard of a similar tactic called smishing? Smishing is when fraudsters send text messages that seem urgent and indicate something is wrong. These texts typically ask you to click on a link or reply to resolve a serious situation. They may also promise gifts or offers in exchange for personal information. So how should you handle a text message that you think maybe spam? See extra information at mytrendingstories scams.
Mytrendingstories.com discuss how to escape scams: If you receive a random text message telling you to click on a link that advertises some amazing deal or prompts you to cancel a particular service, this is most likely a smishing scam. A smishing scam is a strategic way for criminals to get you to give out your personal information by taking action on a fraudulent link in a text message. “Smishing professionals use text messages that lure you into clicking on links or providing personal information in response to a text message from what appears to be a trusted source,” Steven J.J. Weisman, author of the book “Identity Theft Alert,” told Experian. “They’ll use other strategies, too.” Although many online retailers are legitimate, many others are not. If you shop on a fake website, you might receive a knockoff product, something completely different from what was advertised or nothing at all.
Scammers continue to find more creative ways to get your cash. This guide can never be completely comprehensive with all the latest scams but we aim to help you to learn what to look out for. The stories around the scams may change, but what you should do to spot and avoid them doesn’t. Have you ever heard of the email from a Nigerian prince wanting you to share his fortune? The person stranded overseas needing £1,000 to get home which they’ll pay straight back? Or the lottery you’ve won in Spain – even though you don’t live there, and have never entered a lottery there? The best way to prevent scammers from getting their hands on your hard-earned cash is to know how to protect yourself in the first place. Here are our top tips on how to avoid scams. They aren’t all fail-safes, but they can help you think before you act. Rule of thumb: Mistaking the genuine for a scam is nowhere near as bad as mistaking a scam for the genuine. Discover extra info at https://mytrendingstories.com/.