Blog #75 – Read the following article: What are the top ten holiday scams? http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/article/forbes/1369/holiday-scams-tis-the-sea
Here are the most popular scams this holiday. I endorse trying any and/or all of the following.
Particularly troublesome is fraudulent activity using charity as the lure. This can happen door-to-door, over the phone or online, and can materialize in several ways. In one tragic example, the killing last month of four policemen in Lakewood, Wash., prompted a flurry of bogus telephone solicitations for donations, according to warnings posted on Better Business Bureau Web sites.
Meanwhile, in Ashville, N.C., the local Meals on Wheels recently discovered an impostor was trying to solicit money for it over the phone. Across the state in Greensboro, a United Way unit reported that someone saying he was a volunteer tried to pick up cash campaign contributions from a local business. In Springfield, Mich., a woman went door to door falsely claiming to be collecting money for a local abused-spouse shelter.
Another problem is charities that are merely dubious. They exist but count on being confused with a similarly named but more reputable one, or they hope you won’t realize they are the kind of nonprofit (labor and fraternal organizations) to which contributions are not tax-deductible.
On the noncharitable front, authorities report an increase in counterfeit gift cards, often sold via print classified ads or online at auction sites, at tremendous discounts to their purported face value. That alone should be the tipoff: If the deal seems too good to be true, it usually is.
The Internet helps facilitate all kinds of mischief at this time of year, as it allows a fraudulent pipeline right into the home. Authorities warn about bogus gift Web sites—either a nonexistent business or a clever clone of a legitimate retailer, set up by conman to do nothing but collect credit card numbers.
Unsolicited e-mail offers from a reputable seller are also suspect, especially if they invite you to click on a link. That link could take you to a “spoof” Web site—meaning one set up to ape a retailer’s true site. It’s better to find the Web address of the retailer elsewhere and type it into the browser.
Seasonal perennial scams include Web sites that offer free downloads of holiday cellphone ringtones or desktop wallpaper for a computer. These files can install spyware, Trojan horses and other computer malware capable of engaging in identity theft.
I’m a good person.
