Scams are everywhere — and they’re a particularly nasty problem when you have a smartphone. If you’ve ever wondered how so many of your friends and family members get conned and lose personal information or have their social media accounts hacked it’s because scam artists are becoming ever more savvy when it comes to the ways they trick unsuspecting users. One scam stands out above the rest: tech experts say you should never fall for this one common scam because it’s so dangerous. It’s also possible to avoid — but you have to know what to be on high alert about.
Phishing
Phishing is a scam so common you might not even recognize it when you see it. Any time you get an email from a company that isn’t what it says it is, for a product that isn’t the product it claims to be, you are a victim of a phishing attempt. The same applies if you visit a website and click on link to an advertisement that doesn’t turn out to be what it promises. Scam artists are “fishing” in the hopes of catching the biggest fish of all — you and your personal data.
“I remember the first time I was scammed,” says Tech Expert Chris Davis, owner of the website faunafacts.com. “I was browsing the internet on my new iPhone when I came across an ad for a free iPhone case. It sounded too good to be true, but I figured that I had nothing to lose so I clicked on the link. The next thing I knew, my phone was being bombarded with pop-ups and strange messages. I tried to exit out of the page, but it seemed like the more I tried, the worse it got. Eventually, my phone froze entirely. I panicked and turned it off, but when I turned it back on, all of my personal information was gone. My contacts, photos, emails — everything was gone. Thankfully, I was able to restore my phone from a previous backup, but it was a close call.. After that incident, I did some research and realized that I had fallen for a common iPhone scam. This particular scam is known as ‘phishing’— where someone tricks you into clicking on a link that downloads malware onto your device. In retrospect, there were several red flags that I missed, but luckily I was able to avoid any permanent.”
Fortunately, there are more than a few easy ways to protect yourself from phishing scams. If you receive a suspicious email, especially one that makes lofty promises about products that cost nearly nothing, do NOT open them — delete them immediately. If you happen to open an email, don’t click on links. Never open attachments from people you don’t know and never (ever) enter personal information like your social security number on unfamiliar websites. And if you accidentally forget and do respond to a suspicious email, contact the security and fraud department and make sure you change your passwords to even stronger passwords (using two-factor authentication).
