Written by R. A. Stewart
Millions of dollars are lost each year to internet scams, there are steps which you can take to avoid becoming the next victim.
- Do not use your main email address you use for your banking to register for a crypto exchange such as Coinbase, blockchain, and kraken.
The reason being that there are so many crypto scams about that you do not want to expose your banking details to these crooks and this is what can occur if they have access to your email address.
- Do not sign up for social media or other sites with the same gmail account you use for your banking and cryptocurrency.
This could put your account at risk if you unknowingly sign in to a fake account which has happened.
- Do not sign in to your crypto account using a link in an email. You just do not know who you are dealing with online.
- Do not link your savings bank to your debit card on any site.
One person I know did this on a website he bought stuff from. (it was not Ebay, Amazon, or Trademe). What happened was that the website itself was hacked and the scammer had access to his banking details. He saw $3,000 go missing from his savings account.
My advice to him was to never link his savings account to his debit card and to deposit larger sums of money in an account which is not linked to the internet.
- Do not use the names of your pets as a password
A scammer can use what they know about you to guess your password and all they need to do is to browse through your social media profile. It is important not to accept just anyone who sends you a friend request.
What you must do
- Contact your bank immediately if there is a suspicious transaction on your account.
- Change your password if you think it has been compromised
- Use two factor authenticator (2FA)
- Send all suspicious emails to the junk folder.
- Do take responsibility for your mistakes.
Facebook scams
Facebook is being used by scammers to find victims and the most common method is to send friend requests to people. Men, in particular, are targetted; if you are a man and receive a friend request from a young lady, then here are the signs that it is from a scammer;
- She only has a few Facebook friends herself.
- She is over 30 years younger than you are.
- She is scantily dressed.
You can decline such a request and she will be unable to contact you again. Make sure you have your Facebook settings as private so that only your friends can see what you have posted.
Do not even engage in any conversation with these people.
