Hi everyone,
I hope you’re having a great Wednesday. All is good here in Incognito Towers.
Today, this tip focuses mainly on current scams. I’m going to give you advice about some of the biggest scams currently circulating. Most of these scams aren’t even technology-based, or it’s not about hackers breaking into your phone; it’s just about people trying to scam you in any way possible.
Artificial Intelligence.
Before we start, here is a video showing the capabilities of artificial intelligence. The film that you are about to watch, is of two artificially generated characters talking to each other about being artificially generated. What makes it unsettling, is that the two characters are only finding out that they are not real, that they are just lines of computer code. As you can see the two characters look human-like. It is very difficult to distinguish them from reality. Also, their voices are artificially generated voices.
Okay, here are five of the latest scams that you need to watch out for. These scams are targeting everybody in the world so it’s very relevant to you.
Wangiri Scam
I’ve written about this before, but now I have a name for this type of scam, so I’m going to remind you of it :-). The scam’s name is called Wangiri, which is a Japanese word that means ‘one (ring) and cut’. It involves cyber criminals calling you from a premium rate phone number. They only let it ring one time and then they hang up in the hopes that you will call the number back. If you call the number back you are hit with a premium rate phone call rate which can cost you a lot of money. You’ll be surprised how many people call back. If you receive a phone call from a number you do not recognise particularly an international phone number do not call it back. Save your money.
Pay For A Job Scam
We received a couple of emails from people in our community who are currently looking for work. They have received emails from fake companies and fake recruitment companies where they are told that they have to make a payment to get access to training materials, to jump the queue in terms of human resources et cetera. Some of our users have paid several hundred euros to get their dream job but unfortunately, they have found out that it is a scam. If you are looking for a job at the moment, do not get pulled into this pay-for-a-job scam. Companies will very rarely ask you to send the money in advance before you start working for them, it is usually the other way around, in that they pay you for working for them. If in doubt, do not engage. If in doubt, contact us and we will let you know if it is a scam or not.
Car Parking Fine Scam
Car park find scams have become increasingly popular in recent months. In this type of scam, the criminal prints fake parking tickets and leaves them on cars in the hopes that the unsuspecting victim, will see the fine and will just pay it without giving it a second thought. The fake parking ticket looks like it’s from the official city that the person is in. They will have a QR code to help you pay the fine quickly, but the only problem is it’s fake. If you arrive back in your car and you see a parking ticket, just make sure it’s a real parking ticket.
Lottery Scam
Some of our communities in Southeast Asia, and India are receiving emails and messages saying that they have won the lottery or that they have won a contest and to be paid they need to give their banking information. This is an obvious scam but it has tricked many people into handing over their bank details which has resulted in their bank accounts being emptied. If you receive an email or a message from a person telling you that you have won the lottery, before you get too excited, check everything. The lottery company will never ask you to send your bank information unless it’s a very advanced stage of the payment process.
Sextortion Scam
If you receive an email from somebody telling you that they have footage of you doing something on your web camera and that they’re going to release the footage to all of your contacts if you do not pay a ransom demand, you can safely delete this email as it is a scam. The scammer will sometimes have your password, for one of your accounts, that they got from one of the many data breaches that happen every day so sometimes they will email you and say oh by the way to prove we are legitimate here is an email and password for one of your accounts. This is usually enough the strike fear into anybody. But, rest assured, they do not have anything. Do not pay, delete the email, and move on with your life.
Finally…..
if you have ever been the victim of a scam, or if you’ve had your credit card details stolen and sold online, or if you have been involved in any of the many data breaches the best advice I can give you is that call up your local credit bureau and you place a fraud alert on your credit reports. This will make it harder for identity thieves to open accounts in your name. In America for example, the three major credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Once you put a flag on your account, you are now a lot safer, because if anybody ever tries to do anything with your identity it will be flagged so I’ll make it more difficult for them and if they see any difficulties at all they will just simply move on. Doing this will make you less interesting to the criminal. I highly recommend doing it.
Social Media Hygiene:
If you have a social media account, you must maintain it in terms of security and privacy. A lot of people, share a lot of information on their social media accounts, which is why it’s very important to keep it secure. Here are a few pointers and ideas that you can follow:
* Use strong, unique passwords for every account.
* Consider a password manager for easy management.
* Add an extra layer of security to your accounts by enabling 2FA, especially for sensitive or frequently targeted accounts.
* Review your privacy settings to make sure that your account is fully locked down.
* Delete old posts, photos, or comments that could reveal too much.
* Regularly check for data breaches involving your email address. (use incognito Haq check, and we will monitor your email addresses for you :-))
* Avoid sharing specific details about your location, travel plans, or any personal information publicly on social media.
Your online safety is an ongoing process. Spent 20 minutes every week, just reviewing the settings, and making sure your passwords are secure. Like when you’re leaving your house, make sure the door is locked, and that the windows are securely closed. Do this, with your social media accounts. It is very easy to protect yourself, as long as you do the simple things right.
That’s it for today!! if you have any feedback, if you’d like me to talk about anything specific next time, send me an email through the application or leave a review.Your opinion is very important to us, and we read every email and every review. Let your voice be heard.
Sending all the best to you and yours,
Max 🙂