Well the first thing is to accept that it happens. Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away.
The next thing to do is to hire an expert. You are looking for value for money but you also want results. You need to tackle the problem head on and deal with it, burying your head in the sand won’t make the problem go away – but you know this already, or you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog post.

All your details are on your card, the account number, sort code, and even the security 3 digit number on the back of the card. With the help of the internet they are now in a position to start spending your money for you. When paying for things on the internet there simply isn’t anyone there to see the obvious fact that the shaven headed 24years old man isn’t 68year old Mrs Smith from littlehampton! I don’t care how good a face lift you have done, it just doesn’t pass.

What about address you might think? Surely if you order something you have to then have it posted to somewhere and that can be traced? Well yes it can, but it is very easy to use someone elses address. Finding an empty commercial property in London is easy enough, and collecting the package from the property afterwards is simple.

So what can you do? If you do loose your wallet:

• Cancel your cards immediately
• Check the last time you made a transaction, and if anything has been done after that, follow it up with the bank straight away
• If you are insured, get on to the insurance company quickly. It is in their interests to make sure that things are dealt with well because otherwise they will end up paying for it!

Good luck - and if this is you I’m sorry. Loosing your wallet isn’t a nice thing to go through.

A very common Internet scam is a camouflage is the one where you are told about your account being checked. The biggest key to this has to do more so with saying Dear Insert Name Member and telling you about your account. Keep in mind however that it is very common and can really fool anyone easily by its appearance. For the scammers, it is like a comedy show and trying to find out who will be the biggest sucker in the bunch.

The way to avoid it is to not click on the links at all. The scammers want your information just to make your life miserable. Why would they do this? I would venture to guess that it has something to do with bitterness in their lives. There could also be the sense of loving to take everyone’s money knowing full well nothing can be done to them assuming they are in another country.

You also another very common scandal is the lottery won from another country. The key for this is asking for your information. Let me ask you something on this one. If you actually won the lottery, wouldn’t you know about it and remember entering for the contest? Why would you need to give out information and do you trust someone easily? To protect yourself from such a thing and using a very simple method would be to not even bother responding in the first place.

My reasoning for such a thing would be if you did not enter those lotteries and the same can be said for items like Ebay, Amazon, or even PayPal being used in the first place. Take it from me as I had seen these appear and looked at them closely. It takes observation and it can help you avoid phishing. No one is immune to receiving these but since they appear in the Junk Mail folders more often than not, sometimes you could actually have Junk Mail deleted right away so you do not receive any in the first place.

The days of the yellow pages are on their way out, when we want to find something many of now just go to our computers and ‘google it’. We search for what we are looking for, and once we have found it we buy it. The advantages of this are numerous, it can be done from the comfort of our home/office, it can be done at any time day or night, and we can quickly compare multiple companies offering multiple products. When we are searching though, how can we make sure that we don’t end up the victim of a criminal selling something that he doesn’t own?

First off, it is quite important to make sure that your browser is up to date. Older versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer are more susceptible to being hacked, and the newer versions of the browsers have quite sophisticated filters in place that are able to spot and flag up most fake websites before you even land on them, protecting you from even ending up on them.
When you are looking to buy something from a website, if you click through from another site you are more likely to end up on a fake site, especially if the website you click through from is at all dodgy. This is especially true for emails. We all get junk email in our box’s. There is something that the internet community is doing their best to stamp out, particularly seo companys. Despite their efforts though, the internet is too big a place to be able to police efficiently, and so these activities still go on. So remember, if you receive an email and you click on a link in the email, that click could take you anywhere. If you just avoid doing this, you eliminate this as a danger.

Please note, this is especially true for any email you receive that claims to be from a bank. It may say it’s from Lloyds TSB, but when you click on the link, it may take you to an identical looking website to enter your details that is in fact a fake website ready to steal your log in details. So how should you choose your website? Use the search engines.

In order to appear in google or yahoo, a website has to have gained a certain amount of trust from the engines, and that comes with time. If you are looking to order some banner stands, and you do a search for banner stands, the websites that appear are very likely to be legitimate companies that have been around for some time. You are probably going to be alright.

Once you have chosen your website, have a careful look at the site. Does it look legitimate? Does it look honest? Has it been set up in a way that is open about who they are and what they do? Let us look again at the example site. If you go to their roller banner page again, they have done all the right things. They have their products laid out with clear and obvious pricing – no hidden costs here. They haven’t got lots of links going out to other websites and other people’s products. On the internet you can be paid every time someone clicks on one of your adverts, so often dodgier sites have multiple adverts to try and make money from clicks. Most importantly, on the top of the page, they have the phone number of their company clearly displayed. If you have any doubt about them, or have any questions on their product you can now just call them. All these elements come together to form a clearly trustworthy site.

Illegitimate websites won’t have these elements. You won’t be able to easily contact them by phone. Often costs won’t be clearly marked, and there will be numerous links going out of the website.

If in doubt, do not buy. If you have any inkling that there is something wrong, you are better off going elsewhere. There are always going to be plenty of other vendors ready to sell you the product that you are looking for. Once you hand your money over to one of these companies, you are unlikely to ever see that money again.

The frauds that make me smile are the really poor ones that either are really implausible, or are trying to drive traffic to a site in order to sell something. We’ve all I think by now received offers to buy cheap Viagra, or have been offered weight loss surgery loan at no interest. If you’re interested, I can recommend this site if you are looking for acne scars personally. Now, if you have just clicked on either of those two links, beware, for you are probably the type of person that these emails are targeting (don’t worry if you did, they point to a safe legitimate website).
This article is specifically about an email going around that appears to be from paypall. It’s show in your inbox as from “paypal admin” and it claims that unless you log on ‘click here’ and verify your account it will shut down ceasing all ebay trading within the next 3 days. This sounds and appears legitimate, and it even gives you motivation, if you are trading on ebay you wouldn’t want your account suspended. However, when you click on the link it takes you to a website called something similar to paypal, but is not paypal.

I do not know how many people fell for this, but it was a well thought out well written scam, that had me double taking to check it was legitimate or not. If anything like this comes to you, the one piece of advice I can give you is always call or contact the supplier directly so you know whom you are giving your information to. If your bank calls you for details, if you call them back on their general number you can be sure you are speaking to the bank. The same with the internet. If a site wants your details, go independently to the website, do not click on the link as that could take you anywhere.

How safe is your idenity?

Identity theft is on the increase, as fraudsters target unsuspecting individuals in the hopes of obtaining financially crippling information from them.

But what steps can you take to be safer?

1) Protect your PIN.

When withdrawing money from an ATM, or when purchasing goods using your debit, or credit card, always make sure no one is hovering over your shoulder watching what you type.

2) Invest in a shredder.

Make sure it’s a cross-cut type shredder as well. We all receive junk mail from credit card companies, and our first instinct is to throw them in the bin. Don’t do this. When throwing anything away, first make sure you shred ANYTHING with your personal details.

3) Password protection.

Make sure any telephone or online accounts are password protected. Never use your mother’s maiden name - use a random word, and include random numbers as well. Try to memorise passwords, instead of writing them down.

4) Unused credit cards.

Cancel any credit cards you have not used in the past 6 months, as these are easily targeted by fraudsters.

5) Cold callers.

Never disclose personal information to individuals or companies that contact you at home, or at work. These people could be anyone. If they claim to be your bank, or building society, insist on calling them back, and do so on the correct number you have for them.

6) Clean your wallet!

Remove anything from your wallet that you would not want there if it gets lost or stolen: PIN numbers, passwords, extra credit cards etc.

These are just a few tips to help you try and keep one step ahead of the con-artists.

Well, that’s all for now guys. Meanwhile, in other news, Clare has looked into the business of horse liability and Phil is pondering the benefits of microdermabrasion.