As Valentine’s Day is approaching, we want to reach out to all of our readers to make them aware of a few potential unpleasant surprises of the season. Consider using Email-Guard to protect your daily email interactions. Read on to learn why:
Catfishing
The most common way of meeting other people has moved to the online realm. There are many sites for all kind of preferences, and this has made it a popular way to meet. However, it is easy to pretend to be someone else online. Scammers of all sizes like to set up fake profiles with online dating services and develop relationships with the sole purpose of accessing personal and financial information, or even money. Here are well-established manifestations of catfishing to look out for:
The Soldier where a criminal claims to be a service member,
The Hard Come-on where a criminal quickly professes love and persuades a victim to engage on a different online platform allowing the criminal to gain access to victim’s information,
The Mule where a criminal convinces a victim to receive and ship a package with unknown contents or travel with the package to another country resulting in the victim potentially being arrested for trafficking stolen goods or drugs.
Flower Delivery Scams
Valentine’s Day is also perfect scam day for services that you would expect to use, such as flower delivery. Thus, it pays to scrutinize emails and phone calls from people claiming that they are a florist needing more information for a flower delivery. Especially, caution is warranted if flowers are from secret admirers in this context. In short, always be vigilant when people ask for personal information and don’t let the criminals social engineer their way into your personal and financial information. This will reduce your risk of identity fraud and identity theft.
Fake e-Cards
Admittedly e-Cards have seen a decline from their heyday in the early 2000s but sending e-Cards is still popular. The e-Card version is quick and convenient, but also quickly abused by criminals. Malicious actors prey on consumers by sending emails that include suspicious links. These links direct you to copycat websites similar to popular greeting card companies. By following malicious links, criminals can gain access to the information and systems available on the individual’s computer. A classic tell tale for this are misspelled words and/or awkward formulations in sentences, but not opening these types of messages is probably the safest avenue.
According to USA Today, aliasing your email can protect your privacy as well as your security more effectively. Thus, if you need help protecting your email against many of these and other scams, consider using XcooBee Email Guard. It is the privacy protecting email-aliasing service that brings sanity back to emails. And, in the Valentine’s month of February, Email Guard is only $1 for a whole year.
Happy Valentines Day from your XcooBee Team !
