Use these tips so that you don’t become a victim of internet scams.

We’ve all heard the horror stories of how people have been robbed of their money or personal details with the click of a button. While the Internet and email have opened up the world to easy international trading and communication, they’ve also left us exposed to potential risk and fraud scams.

Here’s how you can protect yourself:

1.    Remember that any link in an email or on the web has two distinct elements.

Namely, the link you see and the actual path that the link will follow. This, unfortunately, makes it very easy for spammers & phishers to mask or hide their links in order to try and fool you, and it’s how they inadvertently catch people out.

Therefore, always check your URL’s (the address of the website page) before you click on them. For example, links assigned to the company should always lead to a page owned by that domain. So  if you follow a link to an Absa site, the first part of the link should be www.absa.co.za.  If, for example, the link structure looks something like www.serious.com/absa, then it’s pretty safe to assume that this is a phishing email.

2.    Another common giveaway is that many of the email addresses used by spammers are Yahoo and Gmail addresses.

This is because spammers will in 99% of cases not have access to the email server and set up of the provider they wish to mimic, so they’ll be unable to set up an address under the provider’s domain.

Prevent this by visiting the site of the provider that you believe the email is coming from. See if the email address domain matches that of the contact person on the mail e.g. a mail from Absa (www.absa.co.za) should be from name@absa.co.za or name.surname@absa.co.za

3.    Find out what kinds of communication you’re registered for.

If you are not registered to receive email marketing from them, then you can safely delete any emails that supposedly arrive from your bank etc.

4.    If you are in any way feeling unsure or worried about an email, do nothing with it, or just delete it.

Any business or organization that urgently needs to get hold of you, especially for something as important as movement in your bank accounts, will find a way to do it.”

5.    Enquire about the legitimacy of the communication

You will always be welcomed if you make a call to the call centre to enquire as to the legitimacy of a communication, and if you let the bank know, they will be able to update their other clients, and potentially put a stop to this particular spammer

Dsignhaus is a B2B Marketing Services Agency with in-depth and specialist knowledge in the field of email marketing.

Are you safe enough when it comes to internet fraud and scams?

By: Dsignhaus