In the digital
millennium, people routinely make purchases online. The products are available
at sizeable discounts on various e-commerce sites and they are delivered at
your door step. All you’re required to do is select your item online and then
use your credit card to make a purchase. It’s easy and convenient. However with
people doing most of their shopping through the internet, they have also become
more vulnerable to online fraud. Chief among them is their vulnerability to
identity theft where a scammer use the identity of the victim and takes
advantage of the person financially.
- Huge Credit Card Bill
When you are
using your credit card, you need to be aware of online fraud. If you are found
to be using unsecure networks, scammers can easily get hold of your financial
accounts and then use it for their own benefit. The worst part is you won’t
even know it when it happens. By the time you realize at the end of the month
when you get a bank statement, the scammer would have already made purchases
worth thousands of dollars in your name. With credit cards, you have a maximum
threshold, so no matter how much the criminal spends, there will be limit
beyond which he or she cannot spend.
- How Online Fraud Can Cripple You Financially?
But if the cyber
criminals come in possession of your online banking details, you are in big
trouble and you might end up facing the worst kind of online fraud. You could
wake up one day to find all your savings gone. This type of online fraud could
happen in a number of ways.
You might have
used net banking facilities to make payments on sites with very poor encryption
which made it easy for the hackers to get your bank account details. Or you
could have become a victim of a phishing scam which is a variation of the same
online fraud but with more diabolical consequences. Here you might have
actually clicked on an e-mail link which you believe will redirect you to your
official banking site. In a manner of speaking it does, but the site is bogus
and was carefully designed by the hackers to resemble like the real one.
So assuming that
you need to log in, you enter your username and password and you end up
providing those details easily to the scammers. Now they can use your bank
account to move your savings or spend it on anything they want. To avoid this
type of online fraud, people need to be very careful while checking e-mails.
In some cases
scammers do not have to resort to all these measures to get people to give away
their log in details. They will simply behave as they represent the bank and
will send a mail to customers telling them that their account has been frozen.
They will then ask them to reply back with the username and password and the
customers would be happy to oblige thinking the bank guys would quickly resolve
the situation. This is primarily because the internet is still new for a lot of
people, especially those who are middle aged or older and possess little to no
computer knowledge.
- How to Avoid Online Fraud
If you are the
type who likes to store all your online accounts log-in information in a neat
little folder on your desktop, chances are very high that you will become a
victim of fraud. You should never store those details in your system since
scammers have designed malware that will trace computers looking for such info.
Instead, keep a physical copy locked up and use it whenever you need. It might
be a little cumbersome but it will protect you from identity theft. Also invest
in a good quality anti virus software which will run regular checks for malware
and spyware. Never ever share your username or passwords with anybody through
the internet, even they pretend to be your bank or credit card company. Use
sites that are fully compliant with payment industries security safeguards and
use a secure Wi-Fi connection.
For more details
on online fraud and identity theft, go to Big Scammers and get the latest
information.
