So you’ve made a friend online and have been conversing for months now. You’ve seen this person’s family photos, and heard all about their family issues. You’ve been asked for advice or for your opinion on different matters. You feel genuine affection for this person and are concerned when they tell you about their job loss and financial issues. And then they ask you to wire them money. Stop right there.
As my friend would say, trust but verify. If you have been communicating online with anybody and they need you to wire them money, alarms should go off in your head. Stop and think.
A scammer will always ask for money to be wired. Always. There are many ways to transfer money to a friend or family member, but scammers need you to wire the money.
Today’s scammers are becoming exceedingly sophisticated and slick. They are willing to put in time and effort to lure their victims because the payoff is good. The friends you’ve made online may be exactly who they say they are, but then again they may not. Trust, but verify. And if they ask you to wire money, don’t trust.
Scammers are perfectly capable of posing as a friend and inventing a family or financial crisis to get your sympathy. Do you really know who is on the other end of your online communications?
This is true for telephone conversations as well. My aunt was scammed out of $8,000 by someone who called up saying, “Grandma? I’ve been in a car accident and I need money. I can’t tell my parents because they’ll be so mad at me.”
My aunt assumed it was her grandson Paul and did not hesitate to wire the money to his “lawyer” to take care of the supposed fine. Needless to say the real Paul was extremely surprised by this when next he heard from her.
So don’t assume. If money is involved, always verify. If my aunt had called Paul to confirm, the scam could not have worked. If she had chosen to transfer money directly to his bank account, the scam could not have worked. If she had mailed him a cheque it would have stumped the scammer and really surprised her grandson.
Do not ever wire money at somebody else’s behest, even in the event of an emergency.
Aside from the Grandma Scam there are other scams that have been around a long time. The Inheritance Scam involves the victims being told they can collect on some long-lost dead relative’s estate if they send money to probate the will. The Lottery Scam has the victims being told they’ve won the jackpot but have to wire money to collect their winnings. And the Employment Scam involves fake employment agencies finding the victim a job for a fee.
All of these scams can bilk you out of big bucks. That’s painful enough. Do not endanger your security and privacy or your identity as well.
Please do not share passwords with your online friends. Do not grant them access to any of your online accounts, including Facebook. Do not inadvertently give them clues as to your password. If your dog’s name is your password, please don’t mention it. Or better yet, figure out a much more secure password scammers can’t guess at.
Scammers can use a hijacked Facebook account to pose as the victim and solicit money from friends. Would your friends clue in if they get a message they think is from you begging for money? A sad and plausible enough story might garner the scammer a fair bit of cash.
And while I am dispensing advice, I am as usual urging you to use online data backup. Protect your most valuable and irreplaceable data by using CollectionMine’s online data storage software.
