Comments on: 7 Ways to Identify and Avoid Online Scams

By: TStrump

TStrump — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:10:11 +0000

These scammers are very good at what they do.
I consider myself fairly ‘aware’ but have found myself almost clicking on something I probably shouldn’t a few times.
I just have to ask myself twice, ‘is it real or not?”

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:46:40 +0000

@Phillip: I’ve had the same problem … whether it be a scam or just an incorrect email forward. Just check Snopes!

@Alhefner: True, but anyone who clicks on a dumb popup like that worries me in general.

@B7: Good idea. Instant connection and live person? Good news. Ringing and no response… bad news.

By: Weekly Round Up | Master Your Card

Weekly Round Up | Master Your Card — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:25:40 +0000

[...] Kevin @ No Debt Plan talks about identifying and avoiding online scams. For the love of Pete! Do yourself and your financial institution a favor and read this [...]

By: Canadian Personal Finance Blog » Blog Archive » Random Thoughts: When Bloggers Meet

Fri, 15 May 2009 10:16:12 +0000

[...] After getting ripped off No Debt Plan published a helpful 7 Ways to Identify and Avoid On Line Scams. [...]

By: B7

B7 — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:19:11 +0000

Here’s another big one. Contacting them and actually getting a response quickly. The contact can be either email or phone. Companies that have customer service respond to people who contact them. If it takes 48 hours (or if they don’t respond!) to a prospective customer it means they aren’t likely to talk to their existing customers.

By: Alhefner

Alhefner — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:19:39 +0000

Since you are focusing on the internet. One major scam and doorway to placing malicious software on user computer is the “Your computer is infected” popup advertisement. These advertisements claim to be providing a virus or spyware scan and cleaning for free but in reality, it is loading the user’s system with adware, spyware, viruses, trojans and the like. Users should never click on these ads and if they see one should shut down their browser (to stop any automatic download that they may not see happening) immediately and never go back to the site.

I once cleaned well over 800 infections from a laptop that had first been infected that way. The first infection led to the rest and soon the laptop was unusable.

By: Philip

Philip — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:18:32 +0000

I know you probably know it but for lots of email scams another good place to check on it is to go to Snopes.com I have finally convinced my mom to check snopes if there is an email she is about to forward to everone.

I am usually pretty good, but just yesterday got an email that I went for, that apparently was true in January in California but not here and now. It was one that did not seem that far out of it and did not see any other motives but just was forwarded blindly too many times.