Why are people so gullible when it comes to internet scam? We have told them a million times not to fall for internet scams that involve lotteries and prizes. Jonar speaks with Bruce and Phil about some of the new methods that scammers are using to con people into handing over their private details such as passport numbers. To listen to an excerpt from the radio broadcast, click on the green arrow below.
[audio:3aw_internet_scams.mp3]
Here is a transcript of the audio file.
Host: Jonar good evening
Jonar Nader: Hi Bruce
Host: Now on the internet you are lifting the lid on some scams.
Jonar Nader: Well we do keep reminding our listeners for their sake that they should be careful not to give-out information and not to fall for the ‘hello this is bank can you please remind us of all your details’, because so many people have been burnt to the tune of millions of dollars. But there are new scams now and I just want our listeners to be careful yet again. If you receive an email that says you have won the lottery you would really have to be balmy to believe it. And so people think wow how much did I win? 13,000 dollars? Fantastic can I have the money? Yep sure, just prove to me that your name is Bruce Mansfield. How do I do that?
Send me a photocopy of your passport and your drivers license and give me more and more information that would help me later to ring up your bank and say hello this is Bruce Mansfield. Can I prove it. Sure I’ll give you my passport number.
And so this constant never ending scamming, and the incessant belief of people that they have won something. Now there is a new one:
They say ‘we have a competition, roses are red violets are blue what comes next?’ You think, ‘I know, I’ll send it in and I might win something’ – yes you too could win a car. And people plug things in and then all of a sudden you are the winner out of a million and same old story all over again. It is just endless and all I can say to people is ‘Don’t do it’.
What about the man who is from a reputable company, a reputable salesman. He told people that google is going public, ‘how would you like to buy google shares?’ That is tantamount to you saying the ABC is going public how would you like to buy shares, because I know you so well I’m going to let you buy them cheaply early before everyone else, so we think well that’s OK that’s not insider trading. I could go on all night about scams, in fact websites are full of them. I just hope our listeners never get tempted to press a button.
Host: Is there a fear where you are paying bills over the phone via your credit card that you are giving those details to anyone other than the people who should get them.
Jonar Nader: So long as you do not click someone else’s link. If you want to go to your bank and pay you type in bank.com, you type it in. Do not accept someone else’s email saying by the way your electricity bill is overdue please click here and process it, because now they can be scamming you and give you a page that looks precisely like your banks page and you won’t know the difference. So never on-click from someone else saying click here. Go to the web URL up the top and type in your own, that is much safer
Host: I got a letter in the mail this past week telling me I had won a lottery somewhere in Peru or Bolivia so send $75. They have been around for years and years.
Jonar Nader: Well they have become more aggressive now by saying my uncle died with 20 million dollars in the bank, can you help me get it out and I will give you half. That is still going on to the tune of millions of emails a day. There is also a new one that says I know someone who doesn’t like you and they have paid us to knock you off so just send us $12,000 we’ll call the hit man off and we have the software to prove that if you forward this onto the authorities you’ll be in trouble.
Host: That is aweful!
Jonar Nader: Oh yes very serious stuff.
Host: Thanks for the warning Jonar.
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