When Fred Nault and his wife Dianne posted their Coldstream property for sale on the internet, they received emails from someone claiming to 
be a Spanish woman who seemed eager to buy it.Although wary, the Naults played along with the person, until she said she was attaching a picture of herself. Fred said he suspected there was software in the attachment which, when opened, would send any personal credit card, banking and identity information stored on their computer to the source of the emails.The Naults’ suspicion was quite justified, said Terry Packenham, from the RCMP Safe Communities Unit, as it was probably an attempt to steal personal banking and identity information.Packenham said that internet scams and identity theft are becoming all too common. “Most people don’t realize what’s happening until it is too late and by that time they are too embarrassed to talk about it.”Fred said he went on the internet to check out scams and he found there were thousands of them out there. Fred recently worked for an online realty company and realized that with Internet access becoming common among seniors, they are particularly vulnerable to scams when trying to sell their homes on line.Packenham said that it’s very difficult to track down the perpetrators of this type of crime, as they can be located anywhere in the world, but he added that there are now some interesting investigative techniques becoming available that should help bring these criminals to justice.He also had some frightening statistics that indicated in Canada, this year, $2.5 billion would be lost from the economy through identity theft and one in four people will be the victims of identity theft in the US next year. And it takes on average 170 hours of your own personal time to rectify the situation.Packenham said the main sources of information for identity thieves are stolen wallets and purses, followed by personal information stolen off the Internet.He recommends shredding bills and personal information before it goes in the garbage, cutting up expired bank and credit cards and being extremely careful when sharing information on-line.He also warns about authentic looking, urgent emails, supposedly from credit card companies or banks, which ask the recipient to verify credit card information. If you reply, said Packenham, “they now have all the information they need to compromise your credit card and identification.”
be a Spanish woman who seemed eager to buy it.Although wary, the Naults played along with the person, until she said she was attaching a picture of herself. Fred said he suspected there was software in the attachment which, when opened, would send any personal credit card, banking and identity information stored on their computer to the source of the emails.The Naults’ suspicion was quite justified, said Terry Packenham, from the RCMP Safe Communities Unit, as it was probably an attempt to steal personal banking and identity information.Packenham said that internet scams and identity theft are becoming all too common. “Most people don’t realize what’s happening until it is too late and by that time they are too embarrassed to talk about it.”Fred said he went on the internet to check out scams and he found there were thousands of them out there. Fred recently worked for an online realty company and realized that with Internet access becoming common among seniors, they are particularly vulnerable to scams when trying to sell their homes on line.Packenham said that it’s very difficult to track down the perpetrators of this type of crime, as they can be located anywhere in the world, but he added that there are now some interesting investigative techniques becoming available that should help bring these criminals to justice.He also had some frightening statistics that indicated in Canada, this year, $2.5 billion would be lost from the economy through identity theft and one in four people will be the victims of identity theft in the US next year. And it takes on average 170 hours of your own personal time to rectify the situation.Packenham said the main sources of information for identity thieves are stolen wallets and purses, followed by personal information stolen off the Internet.He recommends shredding bills and personal information before it goes in the garbage, cutting up expired bank and credit cards and being extremely careful when sharing information on-line.He also warns about authentic looking, urgent emails, supposedly from credit card companies or banks, which ask the recipient to verify credit card information. If you reply, said Packenham, “they now have all the information they need to compromise your credit card and identification.”
No comments:
Post a Comment