Avoiding Money Transferring Scam

Let's start from the beginning here! No one likes to fall victim to a scam or money laundering. With Technology being used for most of our daily activities, work, or even transactions this is the time when we all need to be more careful of those scammers that come out what seems like nowhere! Money transferring scams are becoming more frequent in the technological world. Scammers are finding new ways to fulfil their scams and with information being available to use on the internet, they can make themselves seem more real than ever before. Let's talk about some ways to avoid falling for a fraudulent situation and ways to protect yourself from scammers and possible money transferring scams.

How to Avoid Falling For a Scam

Have you ever wanted to work from home and decided to sign up for a freelancing website? These places are key places for scammers! They pretend to be a paying employer, offer you an amazing compensation that seems to good to be true. But that is just it, most the time they are to good to be true! This needs to be at the top of your list to watch out for. Freelancing platforms have their sites set up specifically for hiring freelancers. All payments will in turn flow from the employer to the freelancer on the specific platform. This creates a safe environment for employers and employees alike and creates a safe guard from scammers. Of course this does not stop scammers from trying to get their hands on a new potential victim. If at any point an employer is asking to discuss business off the freelancing platform site or wants to transfer you to someone not on the freelancing platform site, this is a red flag! This is more than likely a scam and should be avoided at all costs!

If you have already fell for this situation and begin to chat with this person, watch for some additional situations that could happen and avoid them. They are asking me to mobile deposit a check and transfer the money? Don't do it! The check is fraudulent and will end up bouncing back to your account. In the end you will be paying the money back to your bank. If you fall into this situation and have entered into the point of transferring the money, do not transfer any money! Let the check bounce and pay the bounce fee which is significantly less than what it would be to pay the whole amount back. Some great signs you are dealing with a scammer when asked to transfer money is they will ask you to transfer through some kind of cash app. They might even ask you to transfer the money through PayPal as well. All of these options are ways scammers are finding they can get away with because it would be like handing them cash. Processing through PayPal or a cash app is risky and can lead to them hacking your accounts and pulling the money as they see fit. Leaving you with no money and them fulfilling their scams. They are asking for my personal information, what do I do? Do not give anyone of your personal information out to these people, this is a trap and can lead to identity theft. No matter how real this person may look, do your research first. There is always something they have missed that will expose them and you can remove yourself from the fraudulent situation.

I Fell For a Scam!

What happens if I fall for a fraudulent transaction? If you ever fall victim to a situation like this, get in contact with your bank as soon as possible! Make sure you have all the conversations from the scammers saved and proof of the fraudulent situation recorded for your evidence. Even though you will have to pay the money back to your bank, there is always something they can help you with in these situations! They have plenty of options to help you create a plan to pay back the money and also some tips of their own to avoid money transferring scams or scams in general. From my personal experience there are plenty of warning signs that should never be ignored to keep away from fraud. Listen to that intuition of yours, if you have a feeling something is not right, there more than likely is something very wrong! Step back and access the situation and do more research. If the scammer is pretending to be an employer, I would go the length of contacting that company itself and ask for confirmation of employment or if you may have fallen for a fraudulent employment scam. Don't let scammers win! Let's make sure everyone at risk is aware of how to avoid this situation and how to deal with it after falling into their trap.

By Cassidy Olsen