10 cheating tricks that are easy to fall for: how to protect yourself
'31.10.2020'
Source: Life hacker
Charlatans play on our weaknesses and masterfully extort money. But this can be resisted, writes Lifehacker.
Do you think that only narrow-minded people fall into the clutches of scammers, and you are not in danger? Who now believes that they won an iPhone or inherited an inheritance from an unfamiliar rich uncle? But scammers do not just make their living on bread and butter: they can find an approach to almost anyone.
How is it most often bred:
1. Fees for treatment
Information about a seriously ill child who urgently needs expensive treatment, a medicine, equipment or something else is posted on the Internet. The ad contains photographs and even medical documents, but often the images are unclear and the medical history is incomplete. And, of course, the card number to which you need to transfer money.
Unfortunately, children really suffer from serious illnesses, including cancer, and their relatives are raising funds for treatment. Therefore, desperate parents can indeed sponsor ads on the Internet.
But there is a rather big chance that behind such posts are scammers who simply stole other people's photos and scans of documents, possibly changed the data in graphic editors and use it for profit. Sometimes they even create clones of charity sites.
- How not to get caught: check information. Request a full package of documents and reports on the funds received and spent, skip pictures and scans through a photo search in Google. You can find out the number of the hospital where the person is being treated and call there to check if they really have such a patient. If the collection is carried out on behalf of a charitable foundation, it is worth finding official contacts and clarifying whether the organization is really involved in this.
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2. Fake Buyer
You display your goods on online sites for the sale of used items. A potential buyer calls you, asks a couple of questions. Sometimes even at this stage, you can suspect that something was wrong: the questions are very superficial and give out that the interlocutor does not understand at all what he wants to buy. Then the “buyer” begins to lament that he lives far away or is now away. And he offers to send a courier or a taxi driver, and transfer the payment to the card.
Further, for some reason, he needs not only your card number, but also the date of issue, the owner's name and surname and, most importantly, the three-digit CVC code. The explanations are usually rather vague: supposedly the funds are transferred from the account of the organization, there is a more complicated procedure and stuff like that. This data may already be enough to leave you without money, but sometimes scammers still ask you to tell them the code from the SMS.
Often all this happens in a hurry and nervousness, because an irritated taxi driver or courier is already standing nearby. Having seized the code, scammers can pay for purchases with your card or transfer money to another account.
- How not to get caught: do not tell anyone CVC and even less the code from SMS, for the transfer you need only a 16- or 18-digit number If you still fell for the bait of scammers and told them all the data, immediately call the bank and block the card.
3. Masked gasmen and other specialists
Swindlers go from door to door, posing as insurers, employees of gas services, management companies, and so on. They check the stoves, pipes and communications, always find a breakdown and offer to install expensive equipment, for example, meters or a gas analyzer, which will react to a leak and help avoid fire and explosion.
Fraudsters can press, manipulate, intimidate. For example, they claim that without a special device, a gas leak may occur in the near future, which threatens with an explosion and collapse. If the tenants nevertheless agree to install the device, it later turns out that it is completely useless. And this, one might say, is still a positive outcome of a meeting with such swindlers. In some cases, the case may end up with an apartment robbery.
- How not to get caught: do not open the door until you find out from which organization they came to you and what the names of the visitors are. Then call the management company or the gas service to see if such employees have been sent to your home.
4. An acquaintance in trouble
On the page of a friend on the social network, a post appears that he had a grief. A close relative dies, someone had an accident, someone was arrested. I urgently need help, transfer money, here is the card number. Sometimes even photos of medical documents are attached to the post.
Mailing to friends begins. Anyone who responded to a request for help and sent some amount soon finds out that he helped scammers earn money: the page was hacked, and the images of documents were stolen from other sources and changed in graphic editors.
There is another, more dramatic version of the same divorce. The scammers call or write to the victim, saying that her loved one is in trouble and in order to help him out, money needs to be transferred. The options may be different: caught on drugs, hitting a person, killing someone, fighting. Now he is detained and cannot speak himself. The most advanced adventurers call as if from the personal phone number of the "culprit" - using programs that substitute numbers.
- How not to get caught: carefully check the information, ask questions, the answers to which only the real owner of the page can know. Contact your friend or his relatives by phone, email or other social network.
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5. Blocked card
You receive a message that the card is blocked. To unblock it, you need to call the phone number indicated in the SMS.
Further events can develop in different ways. For example, the call will be paid and you will be charged money. Or you will be taken to a "bank employee" who will try to extract from you full information about the card, including CVC and SMS confirmation code. And then, you know, the bill can noticeably lose weight.
By the way, such messages and calls do not always come from unknown numbers. Sometimes scammers use programs that imitate real bank numbers.
- How not to get caught: after receiving a message or call, take your time to follow the instructions. Dial the phone number on the back of your card and tell the staff what happened. In addition, no real bank employee will ask you for a code from an SMS.
Specialist commentary
Julia Hill, psychologist, member of the Professional Psychotherapeutic League, blogger.
“All fraudulent schemes are always based on speculation with our own fears and vices. Scammers first build up tension, cause anxiety or greed, and excessive excitement appears. In this state, a person feels the need to perform actions in order to get what he wants as soon as possible.
And here the swindler seems to offer help, acts as a savior, a support in a critical situation. A person is taught what needs to be done to save himself from problems with the law, big waste, or, conversely, to make a profit. Our threshold of criticality is reduced, sympathy arises, unconscious trust in the interlocutor.
What fears do scammers most often speculate on?
- Fear of saying “no” and, as a result, seem rude, ill-mannered, insensitive.
- Fear of making a decision. By doing this on our own, we become vulnerable: we are not always sure that we are right, we are not always ready to bear responsibility for the consequences. Scammers offer a ready-made solution.
- Fear of being deprived of freedom, money, or familiar comfort.
- Fear of losing loved ones.
- Fear of missing out on opportunities to improve your life.
The scam scenario is always based on the predictability of human behavior in stressful situations. Thus, the plot is, as it were, predetermined from the very beginning. If you fall under the influence of cheaters, your task is to change the script so that everything does not go according to their plan.
What to do?
- Maintain physical and emotional distance from adventurers.
- Critically evaluate each intervention and ask yourself the questions: "Why am I going to take this action?" "What will they get if I do this?"
- Conduct yourself against expected reactions. Take the initiative away from the scammers, start directing this show yourself.
- Asking questions that don't fit the script to divert the cheater's attention to another topic and break the pattern. For example, if they are trying to find out your card details and you cannot break the contact (leave, hang up), you can say something like: “Hey, what are your cool sneakers! Where did you get it? Let me try it on, our size seems to be the same. What do you feel sorry for? " And then ask the most ridiculous questions until you discourage your "well-wisher".
Many people think that since they are adults and smart, they are not in danger of becoming a victim of scammers. But this is not the case. At certain moments in life, any of us can fall for the bait. Share this text on social networks to tell us what methods are used by scammers and how they can be resisted. "
