Snippets issue investigates secret society scams, fake Facebook lottos, and a new phishing trick: Internet Scambusters #828
It all sounds mysterious and intriguing – join our secret society and get rich quick.
But this invitation, which usually comes in the mail and implies you’ve been specially selected to join an elite group, is just a cover for you to buy a book on building wealth.
and once you’ve bought one, for an inflated price with a supposed discount, more will follow, as we explain in this week’s issue.
let’s start…
the secret society invitation is just a marketing gimmick to sell books
How would you feel if you joined a secret society? intrigued, sure. and maybe just a little suspicious.
with a good cause. because secret society tricks abound right now. Like most other scams, they are just a ruse to get your money.
the trick works like this. receives a letter in the mail, along with a brochure explaining the supposed background of an organization whose members are getting rich, and it’s all thanks to society.
To make it more secret, the letter, which invites you to join the group, contains many dubious testimonials. he’s also full of praise for your accomplishments in life so far, which is supposedly why they invited you. yeah, you’ve been on society’s vip radar for some time.
all you have to do is register. then you’ll receive an even bigger booklet telling you more about the secret routes to unimaginable wealth.
but of course it doesn’t reveal the secrets. to get them, you have to buy a book. but wait, you’ll get it for almost half the price: $140 compared to the normal $250 or so.
but if you’re gullible or desperate enough to buy the book, all you’ll get, if you’re lucky, is a volume of rehashed money-making ideas, some of which will cost you even more to put into action.
and that’s just the first book. there is a whole series prepared and waiting for you to buy it.
In some cases, the invitation actually includes an invoice for the first book, making it look like you already ordered it.
you can probably see where this is going. it is just a money making post scam that trades in the gray area between illegal and legal business activities. Plus, of course, you’re likely to hand over your credit card details to a shady “publisher.” who knows where that will end?
Reviewing our files over the past two years, there are several variations of this scam, including ones where victims received nothing at all.
Then you know what to do: If you get an invitation to join one of these so-called organizations, throw it away, along with the “bill,” and buy yourself a volume of money-making ideas for $10 or so at your bookstore. favourite.
facebook lottery
another idea of easy money you can dismiss is the notion that facebook founder mark zuckerberg has prepared a pot of gold for you, in the form of winnings from a so-called facebook lottery.
Of course, there is no such thing as a facebook lottery, but does everyone know that?
apparently not. As we previously reported, there is no shortage of people willing to believe stories of winning the lottery, especially those with names like Facebook and Zuckerberg attached.
This scam is very widespread right now. The prize is usually offered at a seemingly reasonable $750,000 and all you have to do to collect your winnings is send $200 in iTunes Gift Cards – the current payment method of choice for scammers.
Tragically, as we know, that’s only the first installment. The demands for money will continue to increase until the victim realizes that she has been scammed.
in a recent investigation, the new york times found 205 facebook accounts with the name of mark zuckerberg, of which more than 50 were lottery scams, although many of them were later removed.
but that’s rarely enough to put off scammers. they will likely only open new impostor accounts.
mark zuckerberg is a very wealthy man, but as far as we know, he’s unlikely to share that wealth through lottery programs any time soon and, as we always warn, being asked to pay for items with credit cards. itunes giveaway is a dead giveaway of a scam.
new phishing trick
For our final snippet this week, we turn to the topic of phishing: tricking people into providing their sensitive information, usually login or bank account details.
thieves use all sorts of fancy tricks to fool people. but, as is often the case with scams, the simplest approaches are often the most effective.
That’s the idea behind what appears to be a simple message: a request to update your password.
With all the data breaches we read about, it’s common to be told to update passwords.
In the current phishing scam, victims receive a message that the password for their email address has expired and they need to update it. it may appear to come from an email server or a company for which you use the email address as a login.
Again, it’s becoming more and more common for organizations to require users to regularly change their passwords, so it’s easy to see how this would seem like a plausible request.
Of course, victims have to follow a familiar path that involves clicking on a bogus link, entering their current password, and then a new one. the only problem is that they are on a fake login page and they just revealed their password.
That’s why you should never click on links in emails that then imply providing information about yourself. visit the original site of the alleged sender and check the status of your login and password there.
alert of the week
The media has been abuzz with reports these past few weeks about the data breach that has affected tens of millions of Facebook users. are you one of them?
if so, you’ve probably already heard from facebook, or you’ll find that your account has been signed out (rather than automatically signed in) and you need to sign in again.
if you want to know what to do next, check out this report in the new york times: facebook was hacked. 3 things to do after the breach.
Time to wrap up for today: have a great week!