On line fraud can be costly and annoying and can cause harm to your computer. Below are some tips from Microsoft to help you reduce your risk of online fraud.
Signs of a scam
To help protect yourself from scammers lookout for these six things .
- Generic introductions such as “Dear Customer,” which indicate that the sender does not know you and should not be trusted.
- Alarming or urgent statements that require you to respond immediately.
- Requests for personal or financial information, such as user names or passwords, credit card or bank account numbers, social security numbers, date of birth, or other information that can be used to steal your identity.
- Misspellings and grammatical errors, including Web addresses. The Web address might look very similar to the address of a legitimate business, with a minor change. For example, instead of www.microsoft.com, the scammer might use www.micrsoft.com. For more information, see Typos can cost you.
- The text of the link in the e-mail message is different from the Web address that you are directed to when you click the link. You can determine the actual Web address for a link by hovering over the link without clicking it. The Web address appears in a text box above the link.
- The “From” line in the original e-mail message to you shows a different Web address than the one that appears when you try to reply to the message.
What should you do if you notice suspicious activity?
If you think an e-mail message might be fraudulent, Microsfoft recommends taking the following precautions.
- Delete the message. Do not respond or click links in it.
- Report any suspicious activity. (See below for contact information.)
- If you believe that someone is using your Windows Live account, you can reset your password. Go to http://login.live.com and click Forgot your password?
- Fraudulent e-mail messages sometimes contain unwanted or malicious software (also known as malware). If you think you might have malware on your computer, go to safety.live.com and scan your computer to check for and remove unwanted software.
For more helpful tips from Microsoft or to report suspicious activity click here.