Never click on the link of an unsolicited email. Almost every email/SMS scam contains a link they want you to click. If you are suspicious login to whatever system it is (Bank, Amazon, Paypal ...) and go check there for notifications and so on. In fact never clicking on a link in a email is generally good practice
The partial exception to this is if the link in an expected transaction/account verification/password reset etc. email. Even then if you set things up so that amazon emails, pay pal emails all have their own destination address (my.name+amazon@... my.name+paypal@...) which is unique to that service you can have a further level of security to confirm that it really is from the service itself. Even then you need to pay attention to the url to make sure it isn't amazon.com.secure.verify.somewhere.in.ru and not amazon.com before you click on it.
As the daughter and niece of 90 and 98 year olds, my battle with these charlatans is endless. Thank you for adding to my arsenal to keep my folks safe.
Irene - You (and everyone) overlook the core problem: Where is law enforcement? There is widespread lawlessness, targeting our most vulnerable citizens. All we do is share friendly advice. We should be demanding action from government (including regulation of the phone and email systems).
Hi, Jesse. I don’t think I’m ignoring the law enforcement issue. I merely did not address it in this article.
I am seeing an uptick in prosecutions.
Last week, Ion Ionitoiu, a Romanian national who lived in Spain, has been extradited to the United States on bank fraud and money laundering charges arising from a scheme to launder money derived from an online vehicle sale scam that took in at least $5 million from defrauded consumers.
The last of a criminal group that created false profiles on dating sites and after establishing relationships with the victims, scammed money out of them—$11.8 million in total was sentenced to prison time last week.
Law enforcement cooperated with organizations such as the Knoble to increase prosecutions and provide guidance to financial institutions and other companies to stop these transactions.
But law enforcement can’t stop these scammers unless they’re reported, and many victims will not report either because they’re embarrassed or they refuse to believe they’ve been scammed.
Is more regulation the answer? Honestly I don’t know. The criminals jump to new methodologies and typologies as soon as they’re detected. There are privacy and free speech issues. There are resource issues. I think educating ourselves is probably the best way to go. We cannot stop every crime, but we can work to reduce the risk.
Never click on the link of an unsolicited email. Almost every email/SMS scam contains a link they want you to click. If you are suspicious login to whatever system it is (Bank, Amazon, Paypal ...) and go check there for notifications and so on. In fact never clicking on a link in a email is generally good practice
The partial exception to this is if the link in an expected transaction/account verification/password reset etc. email. Even then if you set things up so that amazon emails, pay pal emails all have their own destination address (my.name+amazon@... my.name+paypal@...) which is unique to that service you can have a further level of security to confirm that it really is from the service itself. Even then you need to pay attention to the url to make sure it isn't amazon.com.secure.verify.somewhere.in.ru and not amazon.com before you click on it.
Funny that you posted this today- I got a scam TEXT from KYRGHYZSTAN today notifying me my Amazon account had been locked and a link to 'fix' it...
I get these on a near daily basis. It’s incredible how many scams there are out there!
Feel free to send me the links. I can add them to our list of phishing hosts (discordspam [@]devtru[.]st )
As the daughter and niece of 90 and 98 year olds, my battle with these charlatans is endless. Thank you for adding to my arsenal to keep my folks safe.
Thank you for reading.
It really is a never-ending battle.
Irene - You (and everyone) overlook the core problem: Where is law enforcement? There is widespread lawlessness, targeting our most vulnerable citizens. All we do is share friendly advice. We should be demanding action from government (including regulation of the phone and email systems).
Hi, Jesse. I don’t think I’m ignoring the law enforcement issue. I merely did not address it in this article.
I am seeing an uptick in prosecutions.
Last week, Ion Ionitoiu, a Romanian national who lived in Spain, has been extradited to the United States on bank fraud and money laundering charges arising from a scheme to launder money derived from an online vehicle sale scam that took in at least $5 million from defrauded consumers.
The last of a criminal group that created false profiles on dating sites and after establishing relationships with the victims, scammed money out of them—$11.8 million in total was sentenced to prison time last week.
Law enforcement cooperated with organizations such as the Knoble to increase prosecutions and provide guidance to financial institutions and other companies to stop these transactions.
But law enforcement can’t stop these scammers unless they’re reported, and many victims will not report either because they’re embarrassed or they refuse to believe they’ve been scammed.
Is more regulation the answer? Honestly I don’t know. The criminals jump to new methodologies and typologies as soon as they’re detected. There are privacy and free speech issues. There are resource issues. I think educating ourselves is probably the best way to go. We cannot stop every crime, but we can work to reduce the risk.
That there are... dammit...