Identify a scam using your common sense

The world is full of strange people, but the Internet is even worse. It didn’t take much time for crooks to understand that the Internet has given them the ability to gain a worldwide accessibility to possible victims to their scams. Unfortunately, some people use such useful resources to their own advantage and to the detriment of others.

Who has never found a link on a website saying that you’re the 999,999,999th visitor and you’ve won a million dollars? Who never received an email saying that you’ve won a lottery asking you to contact them so that you retrieve your prize money? Every Internet user have come across these circumstances and unfortunately, many have fallen victims.

As a matter of fact, with some common sense and thinking you’d realize that what you’re reading cannot be true! How can you win a lottery without ever participating in it? How can you go into a website, and every time you visit you’re the 999,999,999th visitor? Many don’t realize this and unfortunately continue by submitting their personal details to these persons and end up losing their hard-earned money instead of getting the hefty prize money.

Everyone could fall victim to a scam ... even you!

I thought I’d share an interesting website with you. Hoax-Slayer.com is an excellent reference point if you want to know whether an email you received is a scam or not. All the top email scams are listed ranging from the famous Nigerian Army Official to some of the most common compassionate chain letters. Whilst this website doesn’t give any guarantee that it has all scam emails included, it is a good focal point for who needs to verify the legitimacy of an email that they’ve received.

Personally, I’d suggest that you keep the following in mind if you receive such an email:
1. You can never win a lottery if you didn’t participate in it
2. No stranger is going to come to YOU to help him get the money out of the country
3. Companies have their own domain and won’t use a yahoo (or similar) email address
4. How could a stranger have your email address to inform you that your machine is hacked?
5. No bank will ask you to submit your account details via email

The above are only the tip of the iceberg but I’m sure that knowing these you’ll be able to identify legitimate from non-legimiate emails. At the end of the day, nobody will give you free money – if you really want to make a profit out of these emails, delete them!