Beware of Scams (5)
Early education is crucial. There should be personal finance classes in school that cover fraud and thievery.
We also need to educate ourselves so we can stay at lest one step ahead of con artists. Some time ago, I got a text message from what appeared to be my phone company. It said my recent phone bills seemed abnormally high and asked me to click on a link to verify my phone use.
Uh-oh. I hear warning bells already.
Yep. I’ll spare you the details, but I had to scramble to undo what I did. I was furious that I let myself be fooled like that, but I learned my lesson, and now I warn people to be extra careful.
International romance scams are also on the rise, taking advantage of people’s loneliness. Scammers succeed more often with the stressed and the lonely.
One of my friends fell for a scam like that, where a criminal adopts a fake online identity to gain a victim’s affection and trust. The scammer works to establish a romantic relationship as quickly as possible, and then uses that relationship to manipulate the victim and steal from them. In my friend’s case, the scammer made noises about meeting her in person, but never actually did. Eventually, he asked for money. Then she finally realized the guy was a crook, and she cut him off pronto.
We certainly need to be on our guard, don’t we? At least no one’s tired to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge lately.
