What are common scams I should be aware of?
About this video
Sal talks with Grace about common scams. She explains that email platforms block huge numbers of scams, describes Covid impersonation emails that pretend to come from trusted organizations, and lists red flags like rushing you for personal information or offering free high-value items. Their advice: go directly to trusted websites, check links, verify through another channel and use two-step verification.
You'll be able to
- describe what an impersonation scam is.
- identify red flags in emails, calls or texts.
- list safe habits like going directly to trusted websites and verifying another way.
Key words
- impersonation scam
- A scam where someone pretends to be a trusted source, like a hospital or health organization.
- spam
- Unwanted bulk messages, which can include scams.
- red flag
- A warning sign that something might be a scam.
- two-step verification
- A login that needs a second check, like a code on your phone, as well as your password.
Transcript
- So Grace, you know, and I'm asking both to protect all of us but also I have a strange fascination of, of exotic scams. What, what are the types of scams that you've seen? How, how elaborate have, have these things become?
- Yeah, so unfortunately the attackers are getting more creative. Now, the good news is that most major, you know, email platforms for example are automatically blocking all kinds of spam that, or scams and spam that you never see on a regular basis. For example, during the Covid Pandemic, Google blocked 18 million Covid impersonation emails per day.
And that is something that never made it to people's inboxes.
- What is a Covid impersonation email? - So unfortunately, one thing to look out for with these scams is folks impersonating what you might think of as a trusted source. So maybe a hospital or health organization reaching out with Covid information, kind of trying to beat people in with something timely.
So we do really recommend that folks go directly to the trusted website of that organization as opposed to clicking into a link that may look a little bit suspicious or may not be something they were expected to hear. Another flag is if a email or a call or a text is really trying to rush you into providing personal information, such as your bank account information, your password, or otherwise.
So we, we were seeing trends of attempts to kind of reach out and say, help now or please send money here. We, we are also seeing impersonation attempts around special offers. So, you know, if it looks too good to be true it probably is, if you're being offered free items that are high monetary value, but you're being asked to immediately, you know, put your credit card information down and that's definitely another red flag to look out for.
- Wow. It, it is a dangerous world but I'm glad there are folks like you who are, are helping keep dragging. It feels like it's a never ending arms race so we have to stay vigilant.
- Definitely. I think that's our biggest tip is to be proactive and definitely take a bit before clicking on something suspicious and, and, and verify, you know if there's a, you receive something you think it looks like it's from someone you know or something you're familiar with, go ahead and find another way to confirm that that's actually the case.
- And always check the link you're about to click on and before you type in a password, think three times are my takeaways. And two step verification.
- Absolutely. - Thanks so much, Grace, that was really useful.
- Thank you Sal.
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