Scams have been rife since the day money has moved mediums from hard cash to plastic cards. The number of internet users has increased many folds and as the internet has a vast outreach, scammers have turned their heads toward this modern technology. By using the internet, fraudsters and scammers have found unique ways to ensnare you in tricky schemes. It is never a pleasant experience for you to get stuck in a fraud scheme. However, if you ever become a victim, consult Prime Lawyers to get a professional opinion on your situation. Whether you have been a victim or fortunate enough not to have had an encounter with a scam, you must know how scammers can rob you. Here is a list of top financial scams you can get caught up with.
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Lottery Frauds
A random phone call comes to your phone, you receive it and the person on the other end says you have just won a huge lottery involving millions of dollars. All you need to do is to provide your bank account information so that the concerned authority can transfer the money safely. One phrase: Stay away! If a person calls you with anything of the sort they are playing on your emotion and tricking you. Once they have your bank account information or your credit card info, they can perform as many transactions as they want to leave you bankrupt. Sometimes, in order to win your trust, scammers will only ask you to send over a processing fee worth a few hundred dollars to a foreign address. As soon as you send the money, they disappear without a trace.
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Skeptical Emails from Abroad
There’s a very old and extremely well-known ‘Nigerian scam’ which has fooled quite a few people. This scam also plays with your emotions – just like any other fraud. Using the feelings of trust and greed, the fraudster will lead you to believe that he is an influential person living in Nigeria and he wants to transfer his hard-earned wealth to you for safekeeping. Give him your bank account details and he will rip you off like many others he has done before. Different fraudsters use different stories but the idea and execution are exactly the same. If you believe them and follow through their plan, your money will disappear.
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Penny Stocks
Penny stocks are like golden eggs for scam artists. Do you remember the blockbuster movie ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’? The main protagonist earns fame for his ability to fool people by selling them penny stocks. There is nothing shady about penny stocks, though. They are real stocks but any information about them is wrong. As investors, we are afraid of investing money and losing it, so we trust our brokers or agents to do the bidding for us. That’s where scam artists play with you. They convince you to invest money in a disastrous stock by portraying it as a high earning stock. Once the price is inflated, the scammers quickly sell their own shares of the same disastrous stock, earn huge profits, and are left to dry.
It is necessary to be vigilant when dealing with calls or emails coming from unknown sources. Fraudsters come up with new ways to trick you every other day, so you should be aware! You wouldn’t want a scammer taking away the money in your bank.
