There has to be over a million blogging websites, some of which may seem a little truer to the story then others. As I browsed through websites on http://www.technorati.com/ the blog that I found most comfortable was THE BLOTTER. What could be safer than a blog designed by ABC news, I mean just from the color scheme alone would put you right at home. There may be a little more advertising links that reference links but the blog serves its main purpose.
Cybersquatting: The New Gateway Scam to Identity Theft?
Reported by Krista Kjellman on 9/17/07
"Cybersquatters are getting more sophisticated as they are trying to take advantage of consumers," Alan Drewsen, executive director of the International Trademark Association (INTA), told ABCNews.com.
Well to start you may be wondering what exactly are "Cybersquatters". Kjellman's description was simply and individual or company who designs a web address very similar to a major companies address. These addresses are so similar that they may only change one letter in the whole address. The whole purpose is the obvious. They want the consumers who sometimes may make a simple error typing an address to feed into their fake websites and pay them instead. Now what makes it easier is now many of the companies websites set their payments up with your "typical pay per click", no words said 1, 2, 3 your money is out of your bank account and into their pockets.
Some of these "Cybersquatters" have figured out a way to look like bank websites where now your consumer is doing something a whole lot worse than giving a couple dollars for a product you are now revealing private information (social security, birth date, first and last name etc.).
"In 2006, 3.5 million adults admitted to revealing sensitive personal or financial information to a phisher, according to market analyst Gartner Inc. Of those, 2.3 million lost money, with each victim losing an average of $1,244."
Leaving that scare for all our big Internet shoppers the blog ends with possible ways of avoiding becoming a victim to one of these fake companies.
1.Use search engines like Google or yahoo.
2.Save frequently visited sites
3. Beware of emails that ask to update account info and password
Lastly,should you ever become suspicious of any unusual Internet activity the blotter also provides the consumer with a website for Internet complaints.
No comments:
Post a Comment