SCAMS INFO

Everyday more and more consumers are falling victim to identity theft. In fact, the mere act of identity theft is growing at an alarming rate as more and more people find themselves victim of this insidious crime. Millions of dollars continues to be lost by consumers who are unaware that their personal and financial information has fallen into the wrong person’s hands. Fortunately there are some simple steps that you can take in order to help prevent identity theft from taking place. This article covers 6 tips on preventing identity theft.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #1 - Never, I repeat never give your social security number to anyone unless it is an absolute emergency or is truly required to perform some function. Instead only be willing to use the last four digits of your social security number as a means of verifying who you are. Many companies have now adapted this method as one means of verifying your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #2 - Always make sure to check your end of month bills, especially your credit card bills in order to spot any charges that may not have been placed by yourself. Additionally make sure your bills actually arrive since many identity theft thieves are known to steal your mail in order to gain access to your personal information.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #3 - Routinely order your credit report from one or all of the big three credit reporting agencies in order to check it for any errors or accounts that may have been opened or originated due to identity theft fraud. If you find a discrepancy on your credit report notify the respective credit bureau immediately in order to fix the problem and ensure that it was not a result of someone attempting to hijack your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #4 - Whenever you are asked to choose a password for any type of account or login make sure and take the extra step to formulate a password that will be difficult for an identity theft specialist to solve. Always avoid using easy to crack passwords that use your birthday or your spouse’s birthday as the password. These types of passwords are common and make easy target for thieves after your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #5 - Try to avoid giving out any of your personal information over the phone, in person or online if at all possible. One of the simplest ways to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft is to keep your private information private. Failure to do so can make you an easier target for someone to hijack your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #6 - Always make sure to shred any type of financial documents or paperwork that contains any of your personal information on it before throwing it away. This simple act, which can be done rather quickly and easily, will help to thwart any type of attempt on your identity by an identity theft thief. Don’t underestimate the power of safeguarding your personal information. It is your number one defense against preventing identity theft from happening to your or your loved ones.

Identity theft is a terrible crime and major source of frustration for anyone to have to go through. Utilize these 6 tips on preventing identity theft to safeguard your own personal information. These simple but effective tips will help keep your information where it belongs, in the privacy of your own safe keeping.

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As the number of people using the Internet as an integral part of their daily life grows, it is inevitable that the number of Internet Scams will grow. Unfortunately there are many forms of scams but in this article we will look at three of the most prominent.

419 fraud or “Nigerian Scams”

Also known as advanced fee fraud (AFF), 4-1-9 scams are named after the section of the Nigerian penal code that deals with fraud. Although originally originating in Nigeria these scams can originate from anywhere. If you fall for one of these at best you will lose thousands of dollars; at worst you will lose your life. These usually start with an email from a bank official or the relative of a recently deceased African president or a government minister informing you that they have access to millions of dollars but need your help to get the money out of the country. The end result is that when the deal is threatened you will be asked for money to secure the release of the funds. Do not under any circumstances reply to these letters, people have been murdered while following up with these scams.

Phishing

Phishing scams can be very elaborate, scammers send out emails to millions of internet addresses purporting to be from a financial institution, and requiring you to log in and confirm your details. The email looks authentic and contains a link that you need to click. If you happen to have an account at the bank featured in the scam then it’s a very natural thing to click the link and login to “your” account except it’s not your account or even your bank. It will be a website setup by the scammers to extract as much information from you as possible, Name, Address Credit card details, Bank login, Password, PIN number etc. Once they have these details it is very likely that will have access to your funds and in the worse case your identity. Avoid these scams by never clicking on a link in an email like these, Banks do not sent out emails requesting you login and confirm your details.

Vehicle Sales Fraud

If you place an advert online to sell a car, boat, or motorcycle you will probably receive one of these scam attempts. You will receive an email from abroad saying that they would like to buy your vehicle and arrange shipping. Once you agree you will get a check or bankers draft in the mail within a few days for the amount you asked for the vehicle PLUS the shipping fee you will then be asked to contact the shipper and pay him the extra amount. If you are sensible you will wait for the check to clear then pass on the shipping fee. This is what the scammers expect, the check will only bounce about 3 weeks to a month later at which point your bank will take back the money leaving you short of the shipping money. The best way of avoiding this fraud is not to sell your vehicle to someone who wants to pay the shipper.

I hope all this hasn’t scared you away from the Internet, If you are sensible and wary about offers that seem too good to be true then you should be Ok, just apply the same commonsense you use in everyday life, after all if a stranger walked up to you in the street and said “Hi I am from your bank what’s your credit card number and PIN” would you give it to them?

Mark Thompson ran an IT consultancy in London for many years . He now live in Spain and runs an number of websites including The Income Site

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A search for “paid surveys” on a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or MSN will give you a few million results to search through. More than likely you have arrived at this article by searching in the same way. And you have probably already seen a few suspicious offers.

Get paid to take surveys! Earn up to $250/hr for giving your opinion! Make thousands of dollars a month taking paid surveys in your spare time!

Ads like these are what has everyone asking, “Are paid surveys real?”. Just look on any major website or even in your email and chances are you will see someone offering lots of money to take paid surveys online. Is it a scam?

The answer to this question is no. Paid surveys are not a scam. You really can get paid to take online paid surveys. But, finding a legitimate source for paid surveys can be discouraging. There are several sites that disguise themselves as paid surveys in order to get your personal information or get you to join other programs they affiliate with. It’s sites like these that give paid surveys a bad name. So how do you tell the real paid surveys from the fakes?

Before I answer this question let me give you a brief summary of what a paid survey is and why they are conducted.

A paid survey is a study conducted by a market research firm in order to gather information about a specific product or advertisement. Major companies spend billions of dollars every year on advertising. They want you to recognize their products. In order to find out how the public feels about a product they will hire a market research firm to gather information from the public. One of the ways a market research firm gathers information is through surveys. These market research companies are paid alot of money for this research. So in return for your participation in an online survey each participant will be compensated. Paid surveys are not the only form of market research. There are also mystery shops, product tests, and focus groups.

Now that you know what a paid survey is you need to know what a paid survey isn’t. A paid survey is NOT something that compensates you for purcashing something. A paid survey is NOT something that pays you to sign up for product trial offers. If you see a banner or text ad that says something like, “Pizza vs Cheesburgers. Take this survey and get a free ipod”, that is NOT a paid survey. You will never have to pay a fee or complete any type of offers to take a real paid survey.

So how do you avoid paid survey scams? The easiest way is to find a directory of paid surveys. Read reviews and forum posts of what people have to say about each company. There are two types of directories, paid memberships and free directories. A good free directory will provide all of the information that a paid membership does, saving you $40. From these directories you can join hundreds of paid survey panels.

There are hundreds of legitimate paid survey panels you can join. But there are about 30 or so that send paid surveys daily and weekly. Some of the better known paid surveys are NFO My Survey, Opinion Outpost, Global Test Market, and American Consumer Opinion.

Chris Price has written several e-books and article about paid surveys. Mr. Price has participated in many market research studies and is a member of over 200 paid survey panels.

Paid Survey Resources

Free Paid Survey Directory

Top 20 Paid Survey Panels

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