There are so many schemes that we need to avoid. Credit card schemes involve the use of illegally or fraudulently obtained credit card numbers. They can be used to purchase and services on the Internet. Investment schemes could also be quite dangerous financially. This could involve the use of fraudulent company information and spam emails. Here are things that we should do to prevent investment frauds:
- Do enough research before starting to invest: It is important for us to check with available authorities to make sure that we do things legitimately. It is not enough to just trust a company because it has a website.
- Don’t trust unscrupulous emails: We could obtain plenty of emails that claim that we will get good opportunities to make money. In this case, we should know that scammers are quite well versed in conning targeted individuals. They may ask for a small amount of money first, before asking for more.
- Think long and hard before investing our hard-earned money: It is important that we are already well acquainted with any terms and conditions related to the investment. It is possible that the investment doesn’t turn out to be real. In this case, we could receive less money than previously expected.
Investment frauds could also be related to credit card frauds. Here are things that we should do:
- Perform background check: Before entering credit card details on any website or swiping the card on any machine, we should make sure to the proper background check. It is possible that the person simply tries to steal our money.
- Check the website: We should check the website for possible problems before we enter our card information. The padlock should appear in the right hand corner of the browser.
- Verify business information: It is important for us to properly verify business information. It could be provided in the contacts page of the company. We should make sure that the company has an actual physical address, email address and valid landline phone numbers.
- Use proper payment services: Major payment services should provide us with excellent security level. There could be refunds and charge backs that need to be performed during transactions. There should be also a good dispute resolution feature and the service should provide us with proper payment recovery.
- Look for questionable transactions: It is important to contact the provider if some of the transactions appear questionable. In this case, it is possible for the provider to monitor it any provide the proper resolution.
- Be wary of free email address: Although many legitimate small businesses use free email address, it is important to proceed with caution. In many cases, successful businesses have proper email address based on their domains, hosted in dedicated servers.
Contact the business once we find the contact information: It is important to try contacting the business once we find their business information. This should alleviate our anxiety before start working with them.