Beware of online scams

By Esther Schindler

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The number of truly "bad guys" prowling on the Internet is very small. However, because it's so easy and inexpensive to send out email messages to millions of people, the "business case" is as appealing to the criminals as it is to well-behaved, moral vendors. It's up to you to tell the difference. We have prepared a short video tutorial here, and here is a link to an amusing "test" that you can take to see if you can spot the phony emails and Web sites.

The unfortunate result is that plenty of people will send you email that attempts to convince you to give them money -- knowingly or otherwise.

There are a few kinds of these "offers," including:

• Notifications that you have been selected as the recipient of money. This might be a poorly written message from a so-called Nigerian prince who trusts you to help him get $20 million into the country.
• Advertisements for products at unreasonable prices, such as cut-rate drugs or incredibly cheap software.
• Seemingly-real notifications from a bank, financial services firm, or any other business that might have legitimately acquired your credit card info; "seemingly" is the key word here.
• Poorly implemented and unprofessional genuine offers from companies that really should know better.

All – with the exception of the last item - are scams. The Nigerian prince deal (which has many variations) collects money from the unwary, who are asked to supply money "just for the paperwork" to get the cash out of the country. The "killer prices" are from companies that will happily accept your order as well as your credit card information, but they'll never send the product, and will happily sell the credit card information to really bad guys.

The most harmful are the notifications that appear to be real. For example, a message may appear to be from Wells Fargo or PayPal, and may state that your account has been locked until you re-enter your information. But when you click on the link in the email, it takes you to a fake Web site, which collects all your account information and then sells it to criminals. (The technical term for this practice is phishing.) If you are truly worried about the status of your bank account, don't click the link in your email. Instead, type in the URL field the link that's referenced. Remember, no reputable financial institution would contact you solely by email if there truly were a problem.

The system your email service provider uses to prevent spam may keep some (if not all) of these scams out of your inbox, but eventually you'll find yourself staring at one. To be safe, adopt the policy that you'll never buy anything from an offer that arrives unexpectedly in your inbox. The best approach is to simply delete it without opening it.

Read the Fine Print

Use discretion in signing up at Web sites for newsletters, contests and special offers. It's fine to sign up for email newsletters, overall. However, be sure that any email newsletter you sign up for is "opt-in." That means that, once it collects your email ID, it should email you a message that requires you to confirm you do want to receive the information.

Also, pay close attention to the questions the signup process asks you; at the most benign, there will be a small checkbox (which you may decide to uncheck) that says, "I agree that approved vendors may send me advertising." Leaving the box checked can yield annoying (though not harmful) mail. At the worst, sites may ask for information they simply do not need.

Similar guidelines apply when you sign up for online contests, most of which are a little more strenuous about convincing you to sign up for vendor offers. Most of the time, it's OK. The corporate sponsors are, after all, footing the bill for the latest HDTV giveaway, and folks who run the Major League Baseball site do want you to buy team gear. But if you don't know the organization offering the contest, be wary.

Be equally cautious about offers for nearly anything that's free. Some sites issue a come-on with "a free screen saver," for example. Sure, the screensaver works, but it may have a secret payload: an application that logs every keystroke you make on the computer, and collects all sorts of personal data. Treat such sites the same way that you'd approach an e-commerce site; deal only with those whose reputation you trust. If you cannot resist such offers, you must use the latest version of an anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall program -- particularly if you use Windows (which is the most vulnerable to such security breaches). Those programs do their best to warn you about the contents of the "it's free" software you've found online.

Don't Be Scared Off!

Although I've warned you about all the things that can go wrong, please don't come to the conclusion that the Internet is a dangerous place, and so you should run away. Sure, there are people who are ready and willing to steal your money as well as your credit rating. Remember, those disreputable folks were out there long before the Internet came into our everyday lives. The Internet offers far more marvelous treasures than you can possibly imagine. If you follow the guidelines outlined above, you should have no problem exploring.