Use These Tips to Avoid Falling Victim to Money Scams

Money scams are common—so common, in fact that you will very likely run into advertisements for at least one of them after less than an hour online. Given their ubiquity, you should be on your guard against these schemes. It can be tempting to poke fun at those who fall for them, until you realize that just about anyone can become a victim, given a sly enough scammer.

So how should you avoid money scams? If you want the short version of it: be careful. Those who surf the Web with care are always less likely to be taken in by the latest online con. Of course, this is still not a guarantee that they will never be scammed themselves, but awareness and circumspection do help to lower their chances of being tricked that easily.

If you are not certain what sort of care you need to take in order to avoid being victimized by money scams, you can read our tips below. These should guide you on how you can use the Internet safely without falling for every get-rich-quick scheme out there.

• Learn How Haste Feeds Money Scams

Haste supports money scams. In many cases, it is even a large part of their success. This is why the very first thing you can do in order to avoid money scams is to learn to slow down a little, when using the Web. This may seem counter intuitive, given that the information age is all about delivering data to us as quickly as possible. Even so, it is the smarter thing to do given the circumstances.

A lot of people get into money scams, because they do not take the time to inspect everything they can about an offer. They make bad purchases that they cannot reverse, because they do not think them over clearly before hitting the “Pay” button. They click on links without pausing to check where they lead and end up with malware on their computers.

If just a few more seconds or minutes of review can spare you all of this, would you not rather take the extra time? Do not be taken in by high-pressure tactics, telling you this is your only chance for getting something.

• Accept Only Checks with the Appropriate Amount of Money

This is for vendors on the Web. If you just sold something and the buyer asked if the payment could be made by check, specify that you will only accept it if the exact purchase amount is on the check. One of the most common online money scams features a check larger than the agreed amount.

In that scam, the buyer sends you a check with a good bit of padding over the agreed sale price. They might send you a $500 check for a $400 item, for instance. In most money scams, they will then follow up by requesting that you send back the excess $100 to their account.

You agree in order to protect your reputation as a seller, but then find out several weeks later that the $500 check bounced and your bank has chosen to take the $100 out of your account. So now you no longer have the $500 and are also down by $100 more.

• Read the Fine Print

Lawyers love to say this and it is definitely good advice. A common scheme now is for money scams to offer you a “free” service or product on trial or a special deal. All you have to pay for are the postage fees for the product or materials. You sign up, thinking you are getting a fantastic deal, only to be struck by recurrent fees from the website or company every month afterwards.

This is achieved by having the “real fees” for the offer stated in fine print on the advertisement or product page. The fine print can be made so small or so washed-out in text color that you never even notice it. The idea with these money scams is to tell you that you are paying only a very small amount (the one for shipping) when in reality the fine print states that you have to pay a much larger amount,monthly for the service or goods.

• Trust Only Your Installed Antivirus Program

As far as money scams go, Scareware is one of the biggest problems for computer users nowadays. Scareware refers to malware that usually begins as a popup window on your browser informing you that you have been infected by a virus. In other words, it starts off with an attempt to scare.

Again, those who act too hastily are more likely to become victims here. If you click on a link or button in the popup in panic, hoping to fix your computer, you will very likely install a real virus in the process. Scareware often installs malware on your computer after you have clicked on the relevant link. It then proceeds to hold your computer hostage by declaring that it can fix the problem in exchange for you wiring or sending funds to a particular bank account as payment for the service.

Do not trust popups telling you that there is something wrong with your computer, especially if they show up while you are browsing the Web. If you are afraid that you have malware on it, run your installed antivirus program to do a scan and check for actual malware. Otherwise, just close the popups if they do appear.

These are only a few of the steps you can take to avoid the perils of money scams, as noted earlier. They may not protect you from all of the many money scams on the Internet, but they should give you an idea of what to look out for now. Once again, the best way to avoid these things is simply to have care as your byword, when going online. Money scams depend on recklessness for survival.