Fraud - Recognize it
Believe it or not, there is no typical fraud victim but research finds that fraud victims are likely to be educated, informed, relatively affluent and involved in their communities. Even though you may believe that you wouldn’t fall for a fraud scam, it’s important to be aware of some of the more popular scams so that you can readily identify them because it could happen to you. Scam artists are up to date and very well organized. They use the latest trends and sophisticated techniques so what they do appears to be legitimate and hard to detect. These are professional criminals. They know what they’re doing and unfortunately for their victims, they do it well.
There are numerous ways that criminals will try to scam their victims – here are a few of the more popular ones that you should be aware of in order to protect yourself.

Winning Prize Scam
You receive a call to inform you that you’ve won a big lottery prize but you must send money before you can collect. It is fraud, you will lose your money! Hang up. Legitimate lottery and sweepstakes administrators never charge fees to deliver your prize. This is one of the most common scams – if you send money you will never get it back.

“Phishing” Scam
Phishing attacks use ‘spoofed’ (look alike) e-mails and fraudulent web sites designed to fool recipients into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames and passwords, social insurance numbers etc. By hijacking the trusted brands of well-known financial institutions, online retailers and credit card companies, phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to them. What should you do? Stop. Phishers typically include upsetting or exciting (but false) statement in their e-mails with one purpose in mind – they want you to react immediately. No matter how upsetting or exciting the statements in the email may be there is always enough time to check out the information more closely. Look. Look more closely at the claims made in the e-mail, think about whether those claims make sense and be highly suspicious if the e-mail asks for numerous items of personal information such as account numbers, usernames or passwords. Call. If the e-mail or website purports to be from a legitimate company or financial institution, you should call or e-mail that company directly and ask whether the e-mail or web site is really from that company. Never call the number given in the email to confirm the contents validity – use the telephone directory.

Nigerian Scam
You receive a call, letter or e-mail stating that someone has money stuck in a foreign country and they are looking for outside assistance to get their money out – do not fall for it! They will try to get your financial information so that they can “release” or “transfer” funds to you but it will never happen. Sometimes they will want to send you a cheque and ask you to cash it, keep a portion and wire the rest back to them or a third party. In all cases the cheque will be counterfeit and you will lose the funds wired to them.

The Con Job
Employment advertisements that offer a work-at-home opportunity, multi level marketing plan or other means to “be your own boss” and earn significantly higher income. Be very cautious of deals that sound too good to be true – they probably are.

You are Pre-Qualified
This never means prepay. If there is a “guarantee” and a processing fee, you are being scammed. Legitimate lenders never “guarantee” a card or loan before you apply. A legitimate pre-qualified offer means you’ve be3en selected to apply – you must still complete an application and you can still be turned down.

Not so Special Delivery
You receive a “Last Chance” invoice for a “business directory” or invoice that says an urgent delivery of office supplies is awaiting. Carefully examine all invoices, even those under $50 – scam operators dupe many businesses into paying for goods and services they haven’t ordered.

As you can see here, there are many ways that criminals try to scam. The best thing that you can do is be informed and implement the simple steps to protect your identity mentioned earlier in this article in order to protect yourself. By taking these steps you can minimize your risks. Your security is important to us so at PenFinancial, we’ll continue to use the latest technology available for debit cards, credit cards and online financial transactions to ensure that you have the best access to trusted and secure financial services..