Scams are schemes and ventures that promise unrealistic opportunities to create wealth from investments or to buy services at prices that are far below those you would expect to pay. The people who operate and market scams are usually presented in a very professional and attractive manner.
Scams can be sold and circulated in a number of ways. Direct contact via door-to-door salespeople is common as well as telephone contacts, unsolicited mail or advertisments in newspapers and magazines. Get rich quick scams are increasingly being circulated via the internet.
Check here to see a list of Scam Alerts released by this office and remember, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
You can avoid being caught in a scam by observing some or all of the following advice:
Phishing refers to emails that trick people into providing personal and banking information. These emails usually seem to come from legitimate banks and other financial institutions. The scammers are generally trying to get information such as bank account numbers, passwords and credit card numbers. This information is then used to steal money from you.
Phishing messages and emails often look genuine and appear to be from genuine internet addresses. They often copy logos and message formats used by banks and other financial institutions. This is easily achieved. It is common for phishing messages to contain links to websites that are convincing fakes of the real homepages.
Lottery scams can be an email or letter from an overseas lottery or sweepstakes company that arrives from out of nowhere. It will advise you that you have won money or a prize in a lottery, sweepstakes or competition you have not entered.
Lottery scams will often use the names of legitimate overseas lotteries, often a Spanish lottery, so that even if you do some superficial research the scam will seem real. Some examples of the real Spanish lotteries that scammers falsely use are Loteria Primitiva and El Gordo. It is impossible for you to win these lotteries if you have not bought a ticket from an authorised distributor in Spain.
Other name of lotteries that scammers will often use are the International Lotto Commission and the Princess Diana Lottery.
Some investment seminars may try and convince you to follow high risk investment strategies such as borrowing large sums of money to buy property. Others promote investments that involve lending money for no security or with other risky terms. While investment advice can be legitimate and beneficial it is important to look carefully at what an investment sceme or seminar is offering. Attending an expensive seminar or investing in the wrong kind of scheme can be a costly mistake.
You could be invited to an investment seminar in a number of ways. You may receive a letter in the post, see an advertisment in a newspaper or magazine, or hear about it through word of mouth. The seminar may promise that a motivational speaker, an investment expert or even a self made millionaire will give you advice on investing.
Work from home scams are often conducted through spam emails, or advertisements on noticeboards. Most of these are not for real jobs. Many of them are actually fronts for a money laundering scam, an upfront payment scam or a pyramid scheme.
You may receive emails offering a job where you are asked to provide your bank account details to receive and pass on payments for a foreign company. These job offers promise that you will receive a percentage or commission for each payment you pass on. Transferring money for someone may be money laundering and you could be breaking the law yourself for taking part in such a scam. Sometimes the scammers are just after your bank account details so they can steal money from you.
Top
