With more and more data breaches happening every year millions of Americans information was put at risk. You need to be on high alert for potential phishing scams. We’ll go over the best ways to protect yourself.
Monitor Your Credit Scores
Make an effort to check your credit scores every so often, doing so will allow you catch any sort of funny activity. If your credit score quickly changes, you can be sure that someone has most likely gotten ahold of your information and has been using your identity.
Be On Alert for Phishing Scams
Phishing scams are how scammers fill in the blanks when they have pieces of information about you. In the form of phone calls or emails, phishing scams will try to trick you into think they are coming from reputable companies, like PayPal or your bank.
The best way to protect yourself from these types of scams is to avoid unsolicited calls and hang up on callers that are asking for important and sensitive financial information. Use a iPhone caller ID to help you filter out unwanted phone calls. With emails, be sure to check for spelling mistakes and take a close look at the links included.
Additionally, avoid opening any files attached to emails that aren’t from trusted contacts. Files could potentially infect your device with hazardous malware.
Use Stronger Passwords
Passwords these days for your online accounts need to be strong and unique. This can be really difficult though. One thing that is recommended is using a sentence for a password, but this can get complicated and annoying if you frequently need to change it.
The best thing to do is use a password vault. There are many to choose from, one good one is LastPass. With LastPass you can generate and store strong and unique passwords for each of your online accounts. You can even share access to some of your accounts.
You might think that phone scams aren’t something you need to worry about. Yes, you may have received weird calls in the past, but you’d never fall for any of them. There’s the IRS scam and free giveaway scams, but it’s pretty evident to you that these are scams. What if you got a different type of call though, one where someone claimed to have kidnapped your loved one. What would you do? The kidnapping phone scam is the latest (and scariest) phone scam happening in the United States.
What Is The Kidnapping Phone Scam?
The kidnapping phone scam targets families. In this scam you will get a call from someone claiming to have your loved one, usually a son or daughter. You may hear screaming in the background and the caller may know personal information like family members’ names and the area that you live in, all this makes their call more believable.
The caller will demand you wire them money immediately, or your family member will be injured or even worse killed. This is all designed to make you panic.
The caller will often get the information on you and your family from social media.
Protecting Yourself From This Scam
The best way to protect yourself from this frightening scam is to keep your social media accounts private and only share information with people you know and trust online. Refrain from publishing posts that divulge a lot of information publicly.
Another thing that you can do to protect yourself is keep a cool head, although this is very difficult to do.
- Ask the caller personal questions about the person that the person they say they have would only know.
- Try to get in touch with the person they say they have. While on the phone with the caller try to text the person they say they have or get someone else to call the person that they claim is kidnapped.
- Contact the police. Though the caller will tell you not to contact authorities, be sure to contact them.
If you ever get a call like this be sure to call your local authorities immediately. You can also filter your calls that you receive by running them through a white pages iPhone app. These apps will help you see if there are any phone scams associated with a certain phone number. There are many option in the App Store and in Google Play so give a few a try!
Dating apps have become quite popular recently. You may even know couples that have met via online dating apps and are now married! If you’re a single person and looking to meet a new person, you need to try online dating. However, it’s important to verify the identity of the person that you’re going to meet. The best way to do this is by running a reverse phone lookup on the person you’re going on a date with.
We’ll go over the best ways to stay safe with online dating and get the most out of it.
How To Choose The Right Dating App
There are many options for dating apps and it’s important that you pick the right one. Once you feel that you’ve found the right app you’ll need to make a profile.
After this you’ll start matching with and talking to new people in your area. It’s important for you to keep yourself safe when meeting people in person.
Reverse Phone Lookups And Dating
Oftentimes the first piece of information that you’ll exchange with a new person you’re chatting with is your phone number.
You can then use a phone number to verify the identity of the person and make sure they are who they say they are. This can be done simply by using an app for unknown number look ups to search for information on a phone number.
Meeting In Person
Once you’ve talked to a person enough to get to know them you may decide to meet in person. It’s always best to meet in a public place with the person.
Make sure you take your own transportation in case you ever feel uncomfortable and want to leave. Trust your intuition and if you don’t feel good about the situation, leave.
It’s most important to be safe when using online dating, so use your best judgement.
If you have a phone number then you’ve definitely probably been targeted by a phone scammer. These annoying and potentially dangerous callers seek to steal your information and money. We’ll go over the most common and creative phone scams in the U.S. and how you can stop them. We’ll discuss the Do Not Call Registry and how reverse phone lookup apps can put a stop to these criminals.
IRS Phone Scam
The most common phone scam in the United States is the IRS scam. This scam targets all Americans and in it a caller claims to be an IRS agent and accuses their victim of owing taxes. The scammer will say that if the victim doesn’t pay, they’ll send police to arrest them.
This is a total scam, but it has a lot of success because many Americans are actually late in paying their taxes each year or may believe that they owe money. What’s important to remember is that you will always receive a registered letter from the IRS telling you that you owe money and you always have the right to dispute it.
Charity Phone Scam
Charity phone scams are annoying in that it’s difficult to tell whether or not the call is actually a scam. What is true though is that the telemarketing companies that charities use to fundraise will often take a cut of the donation as part of their fee. For this reason, it’s always best to donate directly to the charity of your choosing and check it first to make sure it’s reputable.
Free Giveaway Phone Scam
A lot of times these types of scams target the elderly, but they can really target anyone. Calls will promise anything from free Caribbean cruises to gift cards at major retailers. They can also offer free medical alert systems, cars, and even money. The one thing that all of these calls have in common is that they are a scam and want to get your information. It’s best to just ignore calls like these.
Ways To Avoid These Scams
The first thing you should do is make sure that your phone number is on the National Do Not Call Registry. After you’ve done this, make sure you report any unwanted and suspicious calls to the proper authorities. The majority of phone scams can be reported to the FTC. IRS calls should be reported to TIGTA.
Download A Reverse Phone Lookup App
Another way to start avoiding calls like this is to download a iPhone caller ID app. Apps like this will help you decide what calls are worth picking up. The less you answer scammer phone calls and interact with them, the less they will target you.
Months ago, warnings about the “Can you hear me?” scam were released by the FCC. Scammers will call victims will call victims and ask them questions like “Can you hear me?”, “Do you own a house?”, etc. Once the victim answers “yes” the scammer will hang up. Unbeknownst to the call recipient the phone conversation has been recorded and their “yes” response will be used to sign them up for unwanted services. Read on to learn more about the scam and how you can stop it with unknown number lookups apps.
The Scam
Your phone rings, you pick it up and the caller asks “Can you hear me?”. You reply “yes” and the caller then hangs up. Seems strange right? It’s possible that you’ve just been scammed. It’s been reported that the caller will then use the recordings of you saying yes to gain access to credit card information and charge you for fraudulent services that you never agreed to. They will play back your affirmative answers as proof that you agreed to the purchases.
Additionally, this could also be a way for scammers to find active phone numbers. Once you’ve interacted with the call they’ll then call you more and in attempts to scam you in other ways.
The website Snopes found no actual money being reported as lost in this type of scam, but it’s still important to be alert to the possibility.
How to Protect Yourself With Unknown Number Lookups Apps
If you receive a call like this where you are being asked questions by an unknown caller just hang up. You can help protect yourself by using iPhone cell phone trace app to identify mysterious phone calls. Instead of answering calls from numbers that you don’t know allow them to go to voicemail. Then check your voicemail to see who it was.
If no voicemail was left, chances are that the call was a spam one. By not answering you’ve avoided scammers and shown them that your number is a dead end. Hopefully, over time they’ll stop calling so much.
If you feel that you’ve been a victim of the “Can you hear me?” scam, you should report it to the FCC.