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Will you help your friends when they are in need and ask you for helps? I guess most of us would help them whenever we can and will try our very best to help them as they are our friends. It is a very common characteristic and value which most of the human has. Sadly, those Internet criminals out there see it as a weakness of human being and start to take advantage of it to swindle others’ money. Previously in our posts, we were talking about how scammers or criminals approach you with an identity of a stranger who you are not close to. However, the ways they approach their ‘preys’ is no longer the same.
Will you help your friends when they are in need and ask you for helps? I guess most of us would help them whenever we can and will try our very best to help them as they are our friends. It is a very common characteristic and value which most of the human has. Sadly, those Internet criminals out there see it as a weakness of human being and start to take advantage of it to swindle others’ money. Previously in our posts, we were talking about how scammers or criminals approach you with an identity of a stranger who you are not close to. However, the ways they approach their ‘preys’ is no longer the same.
On the 16th March 2010, CNN releases Internet fraud-related news in CNNMoney.com talking about the increasing of the Internet fraud cases and some new tactics used by criminals in committing Internet frauds. Nowadays, scammers become more and more savvy and cunning as they come out with new ways to commit crimes through Internet.
"We're seeing that the criminals are using new and diverse tactics to reach out to people," Kane said. "They'll take over your account and then use your identity to ask money from friends for an emergency. Instead of coming from a stranger, it's coming from someone who is supposedly your friend." said John Kane, manager of research for the Internal Crime Complaint Center.
Now, as you can see, even the criminals are reaching out to you through the social networking sites! Perhaps it is Facebook? Twitter? Flikr or Friendster? What is more scary is that they hack into your account and use your identity to pretend as you to cheat money from your friends in your friend list without you knowledge. In the same way, they can also hack into your friend’s account and pretend as your friend to ask for financial assistance.
Imagine this, if one day, your friend in facebook who claims that he or she is having an emergency which need RM5000. You are the ONLY person that she/he trusts, so in this critical time she can’t believe anyone but YOU to help her. What will you do? Will you help her? Sometimes, in this situation, we can’t think rationally, hence, the tendency of us helping our ‘friend’ is high.
Therefore, no matter how; the first thing you should do is to calm down and think what to do next after you receive such a message from your friend who asking for money. Then, call your friend to confirm that the message is sent by your friend. If your friend insisted that do not contact her through phone, then you should be skeptical. Anyway, you must get your friends clarify everything by themselves.
Besides, to avoid your account from being hacked and taken over, create a stronger password using alpha-numerical characters. Once you get to know that your account is being hacked, you should report the case to the social networking site host and then inform all your friends that your account is being hacked so that they will not be the victims of the hacker.
References: Aaron Smith, Nigerian prince still wants your money, CNNMoney.com [Online], Retrieved on 24th March 2010, URL: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/16/news/economy/internet_fraud_fbi/index.htm
