Freelance Jobs – Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Scams Getting Trickier
I received an email yesterday that admittedly had me wondering if it was legitimate. By all accounts, it wasn’t. The “how long have you been a member of our credit union?” questions from people I’ve never heard of, promises of twenty bucks if you complete the survey, and they ask for your account number in order to do transfer the cash. Red flags! Red flags! However, this is not your average scam. Upon checking, I found out this is a legitimate company that also posts all of its contact information on its website. It’s listed in the Yellow Pages. Member of the Chamber of Commerce. In the community for years. The problem is that Sun East Federal Credit Union is being targeted by scammers who are mirroring their website in order to look legitimate.
Why them? Why not? As I said, they check out as legitimate members of society. What better front for a scammer than a real company? Here’s a suggestion – if ANY company, known or unknown, asks for your bank account numbers or your PIN, run like hell. Their goal isn’t to get your feedback or help you. Their goal is to part you from your money. I don’t care if PayPal, eBay, Bank of America or even the IRS asks. NEVER NEVER NEVER give out your PIN or personal to ANYONE!! Legitimate companies never EVER ask for this in email. I don’t care if they promise you a seat in Parliament – the only thing you’ll get is cleaned out. Run like hell. Oh, and spread the word, please. As writers, we owe it to folks to alert them to stuff like this.
And check out some of the job opportunities posted below:
Freelance Copywriter
Freelance Editor
Copywriter (onsite in Chicago)
Freelance Journalist
“Green” Copywriter
Book Editors
Writer – Luxury Pet Site
Freelance Book Editor
Online Writers – Beauty
Freelance PR Writer
Ha ha, I thought this would be an appropriate place to comment because it’s about scams.
I really hope that in time you will see that I’m not a bad person, and I’m not overly self-centered or selfish. Although I can understand how I came off that way. Now I have the chance to prove you wrong. Let’s see if I can.
Good job catching that phishing scam. I got one from “eBay” and I was dumb enough to fill in all of my information. It wasn’t until I started to type in my credit card information that I started to realize something was up. Too bad they had already harvested my user name and password by then.
Jeremy, I don’t think you’re a bad person at all. I hope you can prove my initial thoughts wrong, though. Everyone should have that chance. 🙂
Good luck to you.