Tis the Season to Be Scammed

Tis the season to be scammed and the scammers are out there in full force, thinking of ways of separating you and your money. Thousands of e-mails will be sent to several individuals announcing the winners in the latest lottery or sweepstakes. Some e-mails may ask for verification of PayPal or bank accounts, state that you are a prize winner, and give the results of bidding on eBay.

Many will receive announcements of winning the lottery or the sweepstakes from the UK or some other country. The money won is an extremely large amount, sometimes listed as thousands to over a million dollars. The notification received goes on to say that e-mail addresses were entered by various companies and your address was the one drawn. Furthermore, the notice lists a website to go to for claiming of the winnings. At this website you are informed that to claim your prize, a claiming fee must be paid. This fee can be an extremely large amount from hundreds to thousands. After receiving the fees, the scammers close the site and move on without paying any prize money.

. Some of the e-mails are from PayPal or various banks. These e-mails are asking for verification of accounts. To verify the account a website is provided. This website is an exact copy of the original site. At this site the account number, account password and ID password is entered. . The result, the PayPal and the bank accounts are drained using the information provided. The original PayPal site can be identified by the address which is very unique, https://www.paypal.com/, note the s after the p. Also, always remember that PayPal and banks will never ask to verify accounts.

Another scam is the use of eay auctions. The scammer will put an item up for bid, and then when the bid is high enough, he will pull the item. E-mails will be exchanged with the purchaser telling where to send the money for the item. Once the money is received, the scammer disappears and the item is never shipped.