Protect Yourself Against Internet Schemes

Everyday our emails are loaded with stories of things that have happened in the past, pictures, claims of great rewards for doing something with that email, etc. The list is endless. One of the most popular emails that circulated for a while was about Microsoft offering money if you sent a given email to a given number of people from your address book. Another popular email was a picture of a tourist with a backpack on the roof of the World Trade Center the day of the attacks on 9/11. Both of these had proved to be fake claims. So how do we know if what we read or see is true?

Sadly, in a lot of cases, there is little we can do to verify what we read or see. However, there are a few basic things we can do that will help us keep from falling victim to such schemes.

First and for most remember a basic rule of thumb: "If something sounds or looks to good to be true, it likely is". This is very important to remember when reading about money or products that are being giving to you for free, just for responding to someone's email. Over the years we have seen many times where something is being giving away "FREE", just for responding to an email. This normally leads to the catch of having to ordering something using a credit card.

That brings us to our second basic rule of thumb: "Never give out your credit card number to unknown companies, person or email request". Millions of Americans today are using the internet to pay their bills, do their banking and make online purchases. These are different then what we are talking about here. In most cases, those companies are well known and have a reputation of security online when using a credit card. However, for the purpose of our topic, we're talking most about companies that have little or no known security features for credit card users. Under most circumstances it is strongly urged never to give out your credit card number. Doing so can lead to one of the fastest growing problems in America and the hardest to correct, identity theft. If you must use your credit card for something from the internet, make sure you are dealing with a company you are familiar with, have a contact phone number to reach them, and carefully read and understand all of their user agreement statement before placing your order with them.

Under most cases it is strongly advised never to give out any personal information, this includes email address. Again this could lead to identity theft. In some cases this also could lead to harassing phone calls from telemarketers or unwanted emails. Although state and federal governments have been trying to stop a lot of these types of problems, they have not been able to stop them completely. The best defense is to limit who you share information with, for what reason you share it and why you are giving out that information. At all times when ever giving out any kind of personal information keep records of who you give it to, the email address you sent it to and the name or names of the people or company that requested it, why it was giving and the purpose for its use.

The internet can be a wonderful tool to gain information, products or keeping in touch with friends and family. But it must be used with a little bit of smarts and a lot of common sense. Research the companies you wish to do business with or are going to share your personal information with. Get the answers to the basic questions (who, what, where, when, why, how). And don't believe everything you see or read. If it is something that if of interest to you, then check the facts.

Good luck and Happy Surfing