23/12/2024
I wanted to share some tips on online safety after having a recent encounter with a not so very good at their job scammer. This is quite long winded, more so than I initially intended, so I might repost at a later day as a series of more structured posts with added points (I know right, you can't wait!).
I'll start with a positive.
It is OK to sign up for things such as newsletters and the like. I know we mostly tend to avoid doing this for risk of being spammed etc but there are a lot of legitimate people and companies doing this, promoting really good deals and products. If you want to play it safe, I'd suggest having a separate email account for sign-ups. Legitimate, or more to the point, ethical accounts will make it easy for you to unsubscribe by having the unsubscribe link at the bottom of their emails. Secondly, they will tend to come from an email account that is not free, so by this I mean, they won't be using a Gmail or Hotmail type account (says she with the Gmail account!, however, I do also have a verified business email account for affiliative marketing purposes, which is totally separate from the store as a business, hence why I can give you some insights as to what to look out for and how to best protect yourselves). Emails that use your name also tend to be one's you can trust. For those that you do trust and want to continue receiving emails from I'd recommend adding them as a contact so you don't lose them as junk. I do have some very legitimate emails that go directly into my spam folder, Coles for example always does (they really need better training to avoid this happening), there are scam Coles emails too, so adding the legit one as a contact is a great way to differentiate it from the scam ones, we can all make mistakes in today's world of rushing to get things done so. Check that email address too - does it look right to you? Compare it to what you do know is true and legitimate, check the website that is true and legitimate and compare. If there is a website address with the email, do the same, look for additional symbols including -, do this with emails to. Stick with domains (.com, .com.au, .gov.au, .org) you know and trust, but look closely, it's the small details as just mentioned that will save you.
The email received should also have a business address listed at the bottom too.
The other things you can check are if there is an unsubscribe hyper link (again, there should definitely be one there), the link will contain in it the email service that the is being used. Do a google search to make sure that it's legit. For example, I use AWeber, this will also show up if you view message source (of the emails senders address). The email address I use to give you an idea of what legit looks like is: [email protected] so if we use the store as an example, I'd be using something like [email protected] as my email address (this does cost, hence why I am currently using a Gmail account for the store at this point in time).
This might all seem like a lot to go through but if you're going to give more details out, purchase products or click on links, it's worth the time, in my opinion anyway, to do this. There are some really great deals and products that will benefit you, those that are coming from legitimate sources are targeting you (such as aggressive sounding word unfortunately) as you've popped up on their radar after using a keyword they're looking for in relation to a product or service they can put you in touch with. Scammers will also target keywords too, they do this in Facebook (hence this post), so always take into consideration when and how you're being contacted and what has triggered this. Just recently I received a 'hidden' comment from one of my posts on this site. I replied via Facebook and thanked them for their advice (there was also an option of doing so more privately via messenger as well, in retrospect I'm happy with the choice I made and will continue to do that, and full disclosure, I don't know if there are associated risks using messenger without more knowledge, but it feels like there might be). It was someone I didn't know, so I checked out their profile, it had only been created the day before, which is often a red flag, not always of course, and there was no other information, details or activity present, all red flags. Whilst investigating further, the profile, like and message I'd received from them disappeared. Dodgy as. I had a chat with Bobby (my personal assistant aka ChatGPT, yes I've named him) as I was curious as to what their motivation might have been. I won't use the keyword I think they were targeting, other than to say it may have been a very popular, well-known form of payment used globally. These are the sorts of things I mean when I suggest having a think about what you may have posted, the words you've used, as the content of my post was not at all related to the aforementioned key word, it was very much mentioned as an aside, the post was not something you'd expect to be targeted for by a scammer.
One last piece of advice is to listen to your gut feeling, if something doesn't feel right it normally isn't. This is especially important when it comes to your friends and by people you may or may not know but communicate with. We're all individuals and communicate differently, you get a feel for how someone interacts with you. This can be a bit trickier when you receive a message from someone you know, a friend, but don't really communicate with one on one that often. If they are offering you something amazing, a quick rich scheme in particular, investigate it and even better, if possible, contact them directly via phone or message them using a non-related form of social media than what you've received the massage via. For example, Instagram, Facebook, messenger, they're all related. Their account my have been taken over by a scammer who is now trying to do the same with your account. They will do this to ransom money from you or get your bank account details. Report the immediately. If you need further evidence first, first and foremost be careful and interact as if you normally would, I'm in no way advising to do this though. By nature, I'm a problem solver, so I did investigate a bit further when I was confronted with a potential scammer. I asked to see a screenshot of their bank account details (they did request mine after all), they brushed it aside and just continued recommending I contact the same amazing person that had achieved so much for them). I ended up sending an SMS to my friend to let them know that I suspected someone was using their account, I didn't know at the time how far it extended, even if their phone had been stolen but I thought it was the right thing to do by them. I reported the scam to Instagram as well. Their account had been taken over after falling for the same scam that was presented to me. It was really well done too. Over the past couple of decades since the internet's inception, I have been scammed, duped, lost money, whatever and so now I'm hypervigilant about all things online. We all should be. There's more I could add, and will, at a later day, but for now, take care out there. And despite everything I've said, not everyone is a scammer or a spammer. Currently if you jumped onto my stores website you could think scam, when in reality there's 'minor' teething issues that require sorting out, after firstly recognising them, then figuring out how to fix them and then finding the time to do so. When you fly by the seat of your pants and it's a new previously unexplored venture, it's to be expected, maybe, or it could just be me, lol.
