Types of Identity Fraud Scams
The easiest way for identity thieves to get hold or your sensitive personal data is to trick you into revealing yourself, and they have a number of simple, but very effective methods for doing this.
Phishing
This can take place over the phone or through the mail or email systems, and basically means that the identity thieves will try and trick you into revealing your financial account information such as credit card numbers, account details, and online bank account log ins. Thieves will commonly pretend to be part of a legitimate organisation, contacting you to ‘check’ your account details and log in information, and they can often be very convincing. However if you are contacted with this sort of request just stop and think for a moment – why should your bank or account provider need to ask you for any of your details? They will already have all of this recorded and would never have any cause to ask you for them, and would certainly never ask for them over such unsecured means as the telephone or email. Any requests like this are almost certainly scams and should be forwarded to your provider’s customer services or dedicated fraud department.
Another way thieves can trick you into revealing your sensitive account information is by pretending to offer goods or services, though junk mail shots, spam emails and cold calling (at the door or by telephone). Once they have taken your credit/debit card numbers they will then use this for their own fraudulent purposes.
Small Investment Scams
Another common scam is when a fraudster offers victims a chance to earn thousands of dollars by making just a small initial investment of a few hundred dollars. There are many variations on this scam, from claiming that they need some money to fund a moneymaking project (could be real estate, mining, even diving for treasure from wrecks!) to claiming they will enter you into a ‘guaranteed’ lottery with massive prizes. Needless to say that you will receive nothing back for your efforts, and any money you invest will be lost.