Free Kindle Books 03/12 & 03/13

I've been working for years to help people not fall victim to Internet scams. I equate scammers to cockroaches - you can never completely eradicate them but you can reduce their intrusion into your life online. I continue to use the Internet with blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and my book series so that there may be fewer online scam victims.

I have a free promo running on Amazon today, March 12th, and tomorrow, March 13th, for Volume 2 - "Social Media Scams". It is a guidebook to help protect you (or someone you love) from all the different variations of scams running on Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, YouTube, eBay, and more. Provides a chapter on how all the social media platforms got started and lots of description and advice on scams for all the top social websites. Also includes advice about those pesky fake people on dating sites.

Download today! Or get your loved ones to download a copy...

Help spread the word about how to avoid social media scams.

http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Scams-Yourself-ebook/dp/B00B1DQOZK/

Kathleen

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Common Tax Scams

It's tax season the U.S. That means scammers have a particular target this time of year, to see if they can trick more people into clicking on links, landing on fake pages, and forwarding money via wire transfer. The scammers will target low-income people and senior citizens, but really - they often just play a numbers game - sending out hundreds of thousands of emails and just working the percentage of people who reply to their first email. Or click on the links in their first email.

And right behind the scammers, out purely for your information or cash, are the slimy businesses out to make a buck by promising a better return (they will sometimes do this by filing deductions you are not actually qualified for). And the scammers pretending to be an IRS agent or a former IRS agent and charging money for special information they know (they typically are not associated with the IRS at all).

The IRS will NEVER contact taxpayers by email, text message or social media to request personal or financial information. They just don't do this. So don't believe anyone telling you otherwise. The IRS contact is done by postal mail.



The IRS also does not initiate phone calls to people. That will also be a scammer. Some of these calls will claim to have a refund ready for you and ask you to call them back. The goal will be to collect your bank account information. Their cover story will be so they can deposit the money there. But once they have your bank account info, they will go online and clean it out. They may ask for your credit card info for "security reasons" and then start making charges on it. Some will say there is a mistake on your return and they need to discuss it. Don't give them ANY information until you verify who they are through independent sources. Really, the IRS works by regular "snail mail". If someone calls you on the phone claiming to be from the IRS, ask them for your name and social security number. A scammer won't know this and that will end the conversation immediately.

And if you are not sure, never provide ANY information, ask for a number to call them back on (say you are busy or something), and then go look up the REAL IRS phone number (1-800-829-1040) and call and ask if that call could be legitimate. But really any time someone initiates the first call and says they are from the IRS.... is not from the IRS. That is easy to remember.

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Beware of Fake Facebook Emails

Lately, I've been receiving an inordinate amount of phishing emails that look like they are coming from Facebook. I have 'new Facebook messages', my Facebook account 'has been suspended', I have a message from the 'Facebook IT department', Facebook 'Support' is emailing me, and I have Facebook 'notifications' waiting to check. I've already written a blog post about fake Facebook emails back in January but I've noticed a spike in how many I've been receiving lately.

All I can think is something must be working about these emails for scammers and a zillion of 'em have rushed into use this version of the phishing scam. I am actually getting probably 10-15 of these specific ones a day now. Geez.

My advice is to check your privacy settings and what you have enabled to be notified on and be VERY careful before you click on ANY button or link in ANY email notification, make sure it is not a phishing email. Better advice is to just never click on the links and button in these emails, but open a new browser window and log into Facebook yourself and see what messages you have there.

I'll paste an example below but there may be different variations. Just be wary of ALL of your Facebook notification emails.

(oh, and the buttons and links in this fake email actually take you to http://58.120.227.149/~hafis/dissenting.html?fbuserid=katiemoe   so notice how they are actually tracking me and my relationship to my facebook account if I DO click on anything - I'm guessing they will trick people into providing their password by presenting a fake 'log in again' page. But I'm NOT going to click on it to even find out for you. And you shouldn't try it either - who knows what terrible things can download in the background unbeknownst to you while you are staring at their fake page)

From: Facebook IT Department [hedquist@abraminterstate.com]
Subject: You have a new direct message from Facebook IT Department


facebook

You have a new message from Facebook IT Department. Your profile is not configured. View Notifications Go to Facebook

This message was sent to katiemoe@xxxxx.xxx. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please click: unsubscribe.
Facebook, Inc. Attention: Department 415 P.O Box 10005 Palo Alto CA 94303

Here's another one (the links and buttons this time go to:http://km.ur.ru/relics.html?fbuserid=katiemoe (do NOT click on this link!!!)

From: Facebook Technical Support [ablfm@stockpoint.com]
Subject: You have a new direct message from Facebook Technical Support

 facebook

You have a new message from Facebook Technical Support. Your profile has been successfully updated. View Notifications Go to Facebook

This message was sent to katiemoe@xxxxx.xxx. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please click: unsubscribe.
Facebook, Inc. Attention: Department 415 P.O Box 10005 Palo Alto CA 94303

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