BBB Cautions Netizens against E-mail Scams

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) [Wisconsin, USA] is cautioning the netizens to be alert against the scam e-mails as they regularly get e-mails or calls regarding a new scam, as reported by The Fox6now on May 16, 2011.

BBB warned netizens and stated that, they should be wary of an e-mail scam making rounds on the internet. In this e-mail, the sender seems to be someone, whom the user knows. Cybercrooks are compromising into e-mail accounts, saying that they're alone in a foreign nation and require urgent financial help. The bureau further stated that, scammers stealing money through compromised accounts is not a quite concept, but scam artists are now researching a bit more to make their scam appear as a genuine emergency.

To justify its word of caution, BBB highlighted the incidence of 'Bruce Brown' and his wife 'Pam'.

The agency stated that, the scam artist compromised their (Bruce Brown's and Pam's) password, and then dispatched e-mails asking their friends and contacts to immediately send them money, as they were stranded alone on holidays in Scotland. However, the issue was that, they had never visited Scotland.

The agency further stated that, there are several ways to detect the authenticity of such e-mails.

First of all, user should look cautiously at these fake e-mails and notice the typos and search for spelling errors, as majority of these scams e-mails are dispatched by scam artists based in some abroad nation, who make use of translation tools to write these e-mails.

Further, users should first try to contact their friend through phone to check that whether they really require help. One more significant key to keep in mind is that all foreign nations host embassies of other nations that are supposed to help travelers who are stuck abroad. Every Western nation does not only have an American embassy, but generally other consulates across the nation, and the staff of such consulates or embassies are supposed to help replace a stuck passenger or even fly somebody home in an emergency situation.

BBB stated that 99 times of 100 this kind of e-mail is actually a scam.

Conclusively, BBB highlighted few methods to lessen these scams, such as using a rare and strong password for every online account; the password should include special characters, numbers. Above all, such scams should be immediately reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Related article: BBA Outlines Steps To Ward Off Online Fraud

» SPAMfighter News - 5/31/2011