Jim Winsett of the BBB. Consumers can protect themselves from criminal activity, fraud and unethical marketplace practices by adding a few resolutions to their list for 2017. There is no foolproof way to protect ourselves from all attempts to get access of our personal information and money, but if we look at scam statistics from 2016, we see a pattern of activity that we can avoid for the most part.
Consumer fraud is perpetrated through email, websites, over the telephone and at the front door. Many of these schemes involve impostors pretending to be with a government agency, collection company, public utility, police department, court system or financial institution. In all of these schemes, the criminals use fear effectively to get us to divulge personal or financial information or send money through an unsecured payment system. How do you protect yourself?
– Don’t be pushed into action. Just because someone looks or sounds official doesn’t mean they are. Criminals hope we will be frightened into letting down our guard and that tactic often works. If you receive an unsolicited call or email that threatens legal action, ignore it. The top scam of 2016 continued to be the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) impostor ruse. The IRS and utilities, for example, will never call to demand payment or personal information by telephone or email. The agencies will contact you by mail, and will never threaten to have you arrested or attempt to shake you down for an immediate payment. Good news update; a cooperative police raid in Mumbai, India, during September 2016, shut down a call center with 770 employees, 70 management and supervisor employees were arrested. Be advised however, other call centers continue to perpetuate the telemarketing scam.
– Don’t be greedy. Many swindles are designed to appeal to our desire to get something for free. These include phony sweepstakes, prizes, gifts and “inheritances.” These dupes commonly involve paying in advance to collect the money. This sort of activity also applies to websites with unrealistically low prices for top-shelf merchandise.
– Take control of your telephone. A significant portion of criminal consumer activity involves telephone calls. Unfortunately, caller ID can no longer be considered reliable, so unless you recognize the telephone number, the best tactic is to let the call go to voice mail. In some cases, the caller may even have the last four digits of your Social Security Number or some other piece of personal data. That information does not mean the caller is legitimate.