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Personal Finance From a Biblical Perspective

Be On The Lookout For These Senior-Targeting Scams

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Unfortunately, there are many different kinds of scammers around trying to take people’s money, and seniors are often their main target. Scammers tend to target seniors because many of them have access to larger sums of money, and they think they can trick them into providing them with their personal information.

In addition, seniors tend to not be as techno-savvy as the younger generation, which make the Internet a hotbed for scammers. Below is some useful information about the types of scams that target seniors, as well as, some useful tips on how to avoid these scams.

Internet Scam

Types of Scams

Scammers try all different means to try to steal information from seniors or to get them to agree to make a fraudulent purchase. While there are literally dozens of different scams out there, below we look at the most common types of scams that target seniors.

  • Carbon Tax Compensation. These scammers contact seniors by telephone and pretend to be calling from the Australian government. They offer several carbon tax initiatives and benefit options to the senior, claiming all they need is their bank account information. If you get a call like this, you can be 100 per cent certain that it is a scam because the government never calls people in reference to the carbon tax credit. People must apply for these carbon tax savings on their own.
  • Charity Scams. One of the most popular scams involves contacting seniors to donate to a bogus charity. Before donating to any charity, check with the consumer protection agency in your local area to ensure the organization is legitimate.
  • Investment Scams. These get-rich-quick schemes should always raise a red flag for seniors. Be leery of anything that sounds too good to be true. Nobody should be providing you with investment advice unless they are licensed. You can check the standing of anyone offering financial or investment services by checking the ASIC Connect’s Professional Register.
  • Lottery Scams. A popular scam targeting seniors is an email claiming that you won the lottery. This scam asks you to provide your bank information to deposit the funds into. This is almost always a trap to obtain your personal information. If you think it may be legitimate, you should first seek advice from a legal or financial expert.
  • Money Transfer Scams. Money transfer scams request that you transfer a large sum of money to the other person and then they promise to return more money to you. This is a scam and you should never transfer money to someone you do not know.
  • Superannuation Scams. This is another popular scam that target seniors, as the scammer promise to transfer your money to a self-managed account. This kind of accounts could have high account-keeping fees and cause you to face tax penalties or a higher tax rate.

How to Protect Yourself Against Scams

There are several step you can take to protect yourself against these scammers and secure your personal information.

  • Stop Telemarketers. You want to make sure you have your number placed on the Do Not Call Register. This will reduce the number of telemarketers calling your phone and reduce the risk of being scammed.
  • Do Not Give Information. Another thing to remember is that you should never give your personal information, including banking information to anyone over the phone. Remember that your bank will never ask for this information over the phone. Anyone asking for this type of information could be trying to scam you.
  • Verify Legitimacy. Always take the necessary steps to verify the legitimacy of any charity your donate to or business you work with. 
  • Seek Professional Advice. When in doubt, you should always seek advice from an attorney or a financial counselor. They will be able to help you determine what options or legitimate and which are fraudulent..

The governmental website SCAMwatch provides useful information on how to protect yourself from scammers. You should always question any deals offer over the phone, through the mail or by an email unless you requested the information.

Ask a lot of questions, do your research and find out the name, phone number, and address of any business or organization your work with.

photo credit: Freedigitalphotos.net


Watch Out For This New Traffic Light Camera Scam Which Steals Your Identity

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I came across an article recently on Yahoo which talked about a new scam. This scam revolves around traffic light cameras, and is designed to steal your identity.

When I began to read this article, I expected to read about some fancy IT person hacking into traffic cameras, and somehow using them to read information off of your EZ-Pass or some other recognizable thing on or in your car. But instead, crooks are using laziness and fear to take advantage of people.

The Red Light Camera Scam

What happens is that the con man will choose a number at random; and once a person answers the phone, they simply tell them that they have an overdue fine for running a red light camera. According to the article, they are then told that “the only way to avoid a significant late fee, mandatory court case, or even jail time is to pay the bill right then and there, over the phone. If you don’t pay up you’re threatened with a warrant for your arrest.”

Of course, when this happens, there’s no bill, no unpaid ticket, no red light camera, and the person who was calling does not work for the police station or the clerk’s office. They are just hoping to use your fear and laziness to get you to automatically make a payment. If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be a police officer (and maybe even giving you a supposed ID number), fear may overtake you and cause you to do whenever that person on the other and says in order to avoid the consequences that he is promising.

Traffic Camera

What’s The Point?

Once you agree to pay the fine, the person on the other end will then ask for your credit card number and security code (that three digit number on the back) in order to process the payment. Once they have that, they can then move forward and ask for your billing address, date of birth, and even your Social Security number – assuring you that all of this data is needed in order to handle your payment.

Of course, you would assume that if the police station was able to get your phone number from whatever information came up on the red light camera, they will also be able to get your address, and at least have the date of birth of the person to whom the car is registered. But again, when the fear of a hefty fine or possibly even jail time overtakes someone, the ability to think clearly and to logically assess a situation is greatly diminished.

You can rest assured that there is no police department in the country that will conduct business in this fashion. They conduct all of their business through snail mail and will not call you and give you the option to make a payment over the telephone. Even if you’re at the point of debt collection, all of this is first handled via mail, and once the phone calls are initiated, you should verify everything in writing before making any types of payments.

Covering Their Tracks

According to the article, the thieves will sometimes place a follow-up phone call and tell you that it was a mistake and then assure you that your card has not been charged. They will even apologize for causing you stress or bothering you in the first place. The purpose of this is to cause you to be so relieved that you aren’t in any type of trouble that you won’t get suspicious, and to also ensure that you will not check your bank account to make sure the payment went through. This should give them enough time to place a number of fraudulent charges before you decide to check your account.

So remember that if you ever receive a phone call stating that you were caught with a red light camera, going through a toll booth without paying, an unpaid parking ticket, or anything else of this sort, you should hang up the phone and call the police station or the clerk’s office yourself and inquire about the matter.

In fact, you should avoid giving out any sensitive financial or personal data through the phone, unless you are the one who initiated the call and you are 100% certain that you were speaking with the correct party.

photo credit: sskennel

Reader Questions

  1. Have you every had anyone call you with a scam to get your information?
  2. Have you ever been the victim or known a victim of this type of fraud?
  3. How would you handle this phone call?

Identity Theft And Facebook: How To Protect Yourself From Fraud

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It’s no secret that many people share personal information on Facebook. However, many people don’t realize that they are sometimes giving enough information to make identify theft and Internet fraud extremely easy!

How Facebook Fuels Identity Theft And Internet Fraud

Imagine that you have a few accounts with some very sensitive and/or private data and so you not only assign a password, but you also choose a couple of “security questions” that very few people could answer about you. Then you go and post the answers on a website to which over half a billion people belong!!!

At first, this idea sounds crazy, but just think about the various information that you share on Facebook and other social networks…does it still sound crazy? Think about the information that many financial institutions use in order to keep your information free from Internet fraud and identity theft:

  • Address
  • Phone Number
  • Pet’s Name
  • Street Where You Grew Up
  • Birthday
  • City of Birth
  • Favorite Book/Author
  • Favorite Movie
  • Favorite Historical Figure

I’m sure that you can think of more things to add to this list as well. Now think about how many times you have shared this information on Facebook. I can go to most of my friends’ profiles and find out their phone number, pet’s name, birthday, hometown, favorite author/book/movie, etc.

Not only are many sharing this private data, but they also fail to understand the privacy features of Facebook and other websites. For instance, Facebook is always changing their default privacy and account settings, and when those changes happen, you have to remember to make the necessary adjustments each time!

 

Identity Theft Internet Fraud Caveman
So easy…a caveman can steal your Identity

 

 

 

 

 

So, not only can your “friends” see the answers to your security questions and passwords, but so can “friends of friends”, and sometimes even perfect strangers and search engine traffic!

Status Updates And Check In Points

Do you know what you are saying when you post your current location on Twitter, or Foursquare? I’M NOT HOME, PLEASE ROB ME!!! In fact, the site PleaseRobMe.com used to post this type of information. They would search on Twitter and Foursquare, and whenever someone would post their location, or tweet about where they are, it would get posted to the “Please Rob Me website”!

They have since received a lot of publicity and decided the shut the service down, since their message of warning has finally been taken seriously – many people actually saw them as a “one-stop-shop” for robbers.

Stop Posting Your Vacation Plans!

This is another one that has become very popular! People are constantly putting their vacation plans on Facebook and Twitter in advance! All you are really telling others is, “my house will be completely empty for the next 10 days, feel free to take whatever you want…we won’t even be in the country!”.

If you want people to share in that moment, just wait until you get back and then post pictures!

Quizzes And Games

Remember that information that we listed above? Well, if you don’t include that in your profile, there are other ways to get it out of you! Think about all of those quizzes that ask you a bunch of personal questions and then you can see how well your friends know you. Be careful about what information you share!

The same concept is true with all of the games and applications that want access to your personal information in order for you to play or use them. Definitely think twice about paying real money in order to interact with these games.

In fact, one quick piece of advice is that when you are shopping online be sure to either use a service such as PayPal, or a credit card (preferably with a virtual account number). This way you are protected against various Malware that tracks your keystrokes and other information.

Final Thoughts

I recently wrote about the fact that the consequences of identity theft are becoming more severe and expensive. Being careless on Facebook is not worth the time, effort, and money that it takes to recover from identity theft and Internet fraud.

One quick piece of advice is that when you are shopping online be sure to either use a service such as PayPal, or a credit card (preferably with a virtual account number). One of the most common of the credit card benefits is fraud protection. However, this should not replace the idea of being careful and using discretion while posting information online!

photos by Don Hankins

Reader Questions

  1. Have you ever posted your vacation plans on a social network?
  2. Do you have any of the information listed above available on Facebook or some other network?
  3. Are you planning on making any changes to your profiles?

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