Signal Spring 2019 Newsletter

www.alliancecom.net 15 letter from someone you don’t know claiming they’re a Nigerian prince, princess, or other person with rank who is in trouble and needing to transfer money into an American bank account to get out of it. They ask you to provide your banking information, or they make mul- tiple requests for wire transferred funds to cover legal fees or other expenses. How to spot: Be very wary of any requests for financial transactions from people you don’t know. Also beware of unusual emailed requests that look like they’re from friends; always text or call the sender to confirm. 4. You’re Not Nice Like your least favorite aunt, scammers know how to pull a guilt trip on you. In an effort to maintain your view of your- self as a nice, helpful person, you may be tempted to comply with someone who only wants your money. One example is someone claiming to be from your employer’s IT support calling to ask for your login credentials; they can be charming and, therefore, convincing. Another example is fake charities that ask for your contribution, often following a big natural disaster. How to spot: Confirm that any entity making a request from you is legitimate. Never follow a link from email; instead, research the organization or person online. In the case of charities, beware of organizations with names similar to those you might have heard of. There are other versions of the “fear factor” used by scammers, and once you start to recognize the pattern, you can pretty quickly spot them. Stay alert and avoid becoming a victim. Internet Fraud by the Numbers According to statistics site Statista, “Internet fraud is responsible for more than $100 billion of private and company losses.” Not only that, notes the site, but —based on infor- mation from the Scam Tracker by the Better Business Bureau— Internet fraud is on the rise, with 12,680 instances filed in 2015, followed by 23,013 in 2016, 45,866 in 2017, and 30,263 as of August 2018. The FBI reports, based on the 2017 Internet Crime Report issued by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), that the most common types of crime are nonpayment/nondelivery, personal data breaches, and phishing scams. The same report finds that people over 60 years old are the most likely to be targeted and experience the highest dollar losses. It also notes that people in California, Texas, and Florida experience the highest num- ber of Internet-facilitated frauds. Finally, credit monitoring company Experian reports that of those surveyed by the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), 26 percent had to borrow money, 22 percent took time off from work, and 15.3 percent sold posses- sions to pay for expenses caused by identity theft. Sources https://www.statista.com/chart/15069/ number-of-internet-scams-in-the-us/ https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2017- internet-crime-report-released-050718 https://www.experian.com/blogs/ ask-experian/identity-theft-statistics/#s6