Scams abound

There are lots of scams going around. Some are obvious (to most people) like the ones that misspell obvious words. Or mention that it is a Nigerian Prince that died and left a boatload of money you can get.

One that tried to get passed me recently was one claiming to be PayPal.com telling me there was a problem with my account and it had an email that had something like PayPal.audit.com and it had a link to click that also had PayPal in the address. I’ve seen and heard similar scams from “Visa” or “Mastercard” or “Discover” – really any place that handles money. All of these scams rely on people just carelessly clicking the link or returning the email.  If you should click the link you will probably see a web page that resembles or even exactly matches a real web site for the company – it will ask you to log in. Guess what will happen to your log in info? For sale instantly on the Dark Web. Bad guys will have access to everything on that account. They can go in and drain the account, run up the debt, change the password, change the email or phone number. Nothing good will happen!

The best way to handle anything like this is probably to just delete it. Certainly do not respond in any way. Then you could go to the real site – by typing the PayPal.com or Visa.com or whatever and logging in to the real site and while you are there maybe look at the charges or whatever, see if there is a notice to users about the scam you encountered, perhaps send a message to the site support people that there is a scam – they might ask you to send a copy of the message – if you haven’t deleted it.

You might even without having a scam arrive go to all your accounts and change the password – and make them difficult to guess like H2#wQ7^J^&%hakeut#(!

Get and use on of the available wallet apps that will store all your passwords and log ins for you so those impossible to remember passwords and keep them secure and encrypted. Check out Norton security or McAfee or some other apps that protect from viruses and malware and intrusions and include a wallet function.

The Norton Security also can include LifeLock protection, the password wallet,

Norton Security

Apple’s Wallet (used to be Passport) also lets you use your iPhone to replace your credit cards at the point of sale.

Apple wallet

 

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