Listed on this page are some common scams that are seen and information on how to protect yourself from these scams.
Identity Theft
EBay Scams
419/Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud
Identity theft
“Identity theft is the deliberate assumption of another person’s identity, usually to gain access to their finances or frame them for a crime. Less commonly, it is to enable illegal immigration, terrorism, espionage, or changing identity permanently” (definition from Wikipedia)
Identity theft can take place via a variety of methods. One of the most common methods of identity theft is to steal your wallet, briefcase, mail, or trash. It’s very important that you monitor all your accounts for suspicious activity. If you spot any activity or charges that you know that you did not cause you need to do the following immediately:
Contact your local Police Department and have them file a police report. Although they will not be able to do much else other than file a report you will NEED a police report for later steps to help prove that there has been a crime. Make sure that you get a copy of the police report.
Cancel all accounts where the suspicious activity was seen. This includes credit and debit cards.
Contact the 3 credit bureaus. They are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. They will place a fraud alert on your account(s). If you skip this step, you run the risk of the identity thief being able to reopen the accounts you had closed in step 2. Then contact the FTC and file a report.
More Information
You can find more information about identity theft and how to prevent it in the links below:
FTC
IdentityTheft.org
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Identity Theft Resource Center
Ebay Scams
While the online auction site Ebay is a very popular site there are a large amount of scams that occur via EBay. Below we have some links you can use to learn more about these scams and protect yourself.
http://scams.flipshark.com/safefeedback.htmlhttp://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62226,00.html
If you would like more information please do not hesitate to contact us.
419 Scams
419 (or Nigerian Advance Fee) scams are very common. These scams cost people many thousands of dollars every year. There are many variants of 419 scams. Below are links to information that will help people protect themselves from 419 scams.