Spams, scam and copycats-Oh my!
Well
it's that time of year-again. The
Holidays are fast approaching and we are all getting into the spirit. No, not the Christmas spirit the shopping
spirit. And the spams, scams and copycat
sites will once again crawl out of the woodwork like the dreaded and unwanted
fruitcake. *Hang around a while and you
might just witness the annual 'Fruitcake War' that gets waged between the Ban
All Fruitcakes Foundation (BAFF) and the Fruitcake Defense League (FDL)*
The
point is these scams and copycats etc become more plentiful this time of
year. The internet has made shopping
easy for many. It has also made easy for
the scammers and to find gullible marks to fleece.
There
are two main types of scams that explode this time of year:
The earnings scam
Money
is a big issue this time of year especially with the economy the way it
is. Everyone is wondering how they will
pay for all those gifts to put under the tree.
The scammers know this. Be wary
of 'new' sites promising immediate riches.
No you are not going to make thousands of dollars in time to do your
Christmas shopping while you sleep. That's
pure BS, the scammer is feeding into your need to give the kids a nice
Christmas. Yes you will be giving the kids
a nice Christmas only it will be the scammers kids and not your own. In order to find their marks the scammers
will wear two hats as they spam everything in sight to find as many marks as
they can before they get shut down.
The shopping scam
Yes a
lot of people are shopping online looking for internet bargains. This causes the explosion of 'copycat' scam
sites. Who can resist a Tiffany bracelet
for $9.95? The problem is that it's not
Tiffany. The site has nothing to do with
the Tiffany Company. Yes I know that 'Tiffany'
may be in the site name and url, but the truth is it is a scam site set up by
crook that will send you a cheap knock off if you are lucky or nothing at
all. Many well known retailers have they
sites copycatted this time of year. One
good defense for this is shopping through reputable online 'malls'. These malls are simply 'portals' to the
actual retailer site. If you are on one
of these malls and you click the Tiffany link, the portal will take you to the
Tiffany Company shopping site. If you
can?t shop though an online mall, pay attention to the url. Place your cursor over the link and it should
show you exactly what url that link is leading to. If it is not the actual company url or a
shortened link-don't go there.
The
biggest thing is to be aware and not blindly jump on things. Take the time to research them and do your
due diligence. If that make money site is reputable, it's
not going anywhere. If it's an
established retailer they are not going out of business in the time it takes
you to do a little digging. If it does,
then guess what? It was a scam all along.
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Comments (13)
Unmesh P.2
SEO Professional
Hi
Very interesting reading
Andriy Postovenskyy12
Forex trader
In Ukraine there are sites where you can read customers reviews on online shops, as well positive as negative. Before to carry out some purchase in the internet, I long look over reviews on these sites. I analyse information and only then make decision about a purchase. Although unconscientious reviews meet sometimes (obviously propaid)
Piyush Mistri8
SR SEO EXECUTIVE
Thanks for the reminder, will take more precaution about it next time.
Shee S.7
Non
Thanks for the reminder, will take more precaution about it next time.
Cheryl Baumgartner12
Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Oh yes the street corner or around here flea market Louie Vitton handbags for $19. Riiiighhht!
Paula van Dun16
Retired
I go to Turkey on vacation 3 times a year. There are copycats everywhere. However the quality is good. I buy all my clothes in Turkey. I know they are knock offs but I buy them because of the quality.
Wendy Ward7
Web Designer
cheap knockoffs are of course not just an online problem at this time of year, they are also plentiful on the highstreets and markets in the lead up to christmas.
Cheryl Baumgartner12
Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
I personally will not click a link if I don't know where it goes. That's a very good way to pick up viruses. While having Twitter cloak a link is one thing since you know this is standard for Twitter, I won't click any cloaked link outside of Twitter etc because I don't have any idea WHOSE link it it or that it is going WHERE it is supposed to go.
If I hover my cursor over that link and it's cloaked, I'm not going any farther because scammers and hackers know that "cloak your link" trick to
Rev. Nathan Von Grif...11
Strategic Consultant Closer
Hey pplcheryl63 the scammers will also do similar things to personal websites as well. They will send traffic that is suppose to be going to your personal website to their scam sites if you're not careful. So you have to cloak your urls so they can't do that to you.
If you notice twitter, facebook and all the other social sites are letting you put your personal links in the share message; but they are then cloaking the link for you now.
You can also go to my profile and find a link cl
Chuck Harduby7
Entrepreneur
Thanks for your comments and insights. They will help many who don't know enough about the old adage "if it sounds to good to be true......"
Wayne2
Thanks for the information in this blog. It is good for people to be aware of these scams and tricks that magically appear throughout the IM community.
Cheryl Baumgartner12
Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Yes they can but the thing is many that get burned this time of year would not have gotten burned if they just put a little time into doing minimal investigation. Just paying attention to the url would probably cut down on more than half of those caught with the shopping scam because the url does not go to the company website
Paula van Dun16
Retired
In Holland there are sites where you can read customers reviews on online shops, as well positive as negative. I guess there will be something alike in the USA. Maybe you can ad a link to such a site if you have one. People can learn a lot just be reading some comments.