[Boomer]

NerdWallet is running a series on their Smart Money podcasts on identity theft, cyber fraud, and scams in general.

The first episode was last week’s “Things You Can Do Right Now to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft” (as in, Freeze Your Credit) and this week’s was “How to Guard Against Cyber Fraud.” (Public Wi-Fi can be a big risk to your privacy.)

These episodes are well worth listening to. If you don’t use a podcast app, you can find them on the site for a listen, as well as being able to read the transcripts there.

I now know 4 people who have fallen victim to online fraud and I would never have guessed it could happen to any of them.

The criminals are getting more sophisticated every day with their mastery of technology. It pays them in billions.

This new NerdWallet Smart Money series might teach you some new things to watch out for.

Please learn everything you can about how the enemy operates.

Boomer

[Boomer]

One of the people I heard from who was scammed had grown impatient with trying to communicate with a big streaming company online about an overcharge and decided to look up their phone number on the internet.

And, oh my, yes, the scammers were patiently standing by waiting to be ever so helpful in sending a credit to her bank account. She caught on fast and they did not get much. But the sweeping up she had to do took significant time and the whole thing left her feeling embarrassed and vulnerable. I give her a lot of credit though for telling her friends about it because we would never in a million years thought it could happen to her. She is proof that it can happen to anybody.

The moral of the story: Never get in a hurry and use one of those phone numbers you “think” you have found by itself on the internet.

Another one I have heard about recently was about a perfectly spelled, grammatically correct, official looking email from “someone” with a name and title at PayPal, telling you to click on a link. Looking closely at the sender’s address showed the con, although it looked almost legit. This was received by someone who had never used PayPal. I guess the goal was to make recipients fear their identity had been stolen — while trying to steal their identity.

The second of the NerdWallet podcasts gets into briefly mentioning the types of technology the criminals know how to use. Scarier than anything Stephen King can think of — and no end in sight.

Boomer