Scammers can use the Internet to promote fraud through unsolicited or junk emails, known as spam and advertisings. Even if they only get a handful of replies from the millions of emails they send out, it is still worth their while. Be wary of replying, even just to "unsubscribe", because that will give a scammer confirmation that they have reached a real email address. Any email you receive that comes from a sender you do not know, is not specifically addressed to you, and promises you some benefit is likely to be spam.

Malicious software - also referred to as malware, spyware, key loggers, trojan horses or trojans - poses online security threats. Scammers try to install this software on your computer so that they can gain access to files stored on your computer and other personal details and passwords.

Phishing scams are all about tricking you into handing over your personal and banking details to scammers. The emails you receive might look and sound legitimate but in reality genuine organizations like a bank or a government authority will never expect you to send your personal information by an email or online.

Scammers use a wide range of tricks to get their software onto your computer. They may trick you into clicking on a link or pop-up message in a spam email, or by getting you to visit a fake website set up solely to infect people’s computers.

Scammers can easily copy the logo or even the entire website of a genuine organization. So don’t just assume an email you receive is legitimate. If the email is asking you to visit a website to "update", "validate" or "confirm" your account information, be sceptical.

Delete phishing emails. They can carry viruses that can infect your computer. Do not open any attachments or follow any links in phishing emails.

Online auctions and Internet shopping can be a lot of fun and can also help you find good deals. Unfortunately, they also attract scammers.

Scammers will often try to get you to deal outside of online auction sites. They may claim the winner of an auction that you were bidding on has pulled out and offer the item to you. Once you have paid, you will never hear from them again and the auction site will not be able to help you.

Listed below are tips to protect yourself and your family from various forms of Internet fraud:

• If you choose to shop online or participate in online auctions, make sure you know about refund policies and dispute-handling processes, and be careful that you are not overcharged. Also, you may want to use an escrow service, such as PayPal. This service will hold your payment and only release it to the seller once you have confirmed that you received what you paid for. There is usually a small fee for this service. A legitimate bank or financial institution will never ask you to click on a link in an email or send your account details through an email or website.
  
  
• Never buy from bidders with poor ratings on auction sites, and do your best to ensure that you are only making purchases from genuine shopping sites. Never provide your personal, credit card or account information unless you are certain the site is genuine.
  
  
• Don’t reply to spam emails, even to unsubscribe, and do not click on any links or call any telephone number listed in a spam email. Make sure you have current protective software or get advice from a computer specialist.
  
  
• If an email or pop-up offers you a product or service that genuinely interests you and it seems reasonable, be sure that you understand all the terms and conditions and costs involved before making a purchase or providing your details.
  
  
• Ask yourself: By opening this suspect email, will I risk the security of my computer? Are the contact details provided in the email correct? Telephone your bank or financial institution to ask whether the email you received is genuine.

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General (HUD-OIG) urge consumers, especially senior citizens, to be vigilant when seeking reverse mortgage products. Reverse mortgages, also known as home equity conversion mortgages (HECM), have increased more than 1,300 percent between 1999 and 2008, creating significant opportunities for fraud perpetrators.

Reverse mortgage scams are engineered by unscrupulous professionals in a multitude of real estate, financial services, and related companies to steal the equity from the property of unsuspecting senior citizens or to use these seniors to unwittingly aid the fraudsters in stealing equity from a flipped property.

In many of the reported scams, victim seniors are offered free homes, investment opportunities, and foreclosure or refinance assistance. They are also used as straw buyers in property flipping scams. Seniors are frequently targeted through local churches and investment seminars, as well as television, radio, billboard, and mailer advertisements.

A legitimate HECM loan product is insured by the Federal Housing Authority. It enables eligible homeowners to access the equity in their homes by providing funds without incurring a monthly payment. Eligible borrowers must be 62 years or older who occupy their property as their primary residence and who own their property or have a small mortgage balance. See the FBI/HUD Intelligence Bulletin for specific details on HECMs as well as other foreclosure rescue and investment schemes.

Tips for Avoiding Reverse Mortgage Scams:

• Do not respond to unsolicited advertisements.
• Be suspicious of anyone claiming that you can own a home with no down payment.
• Do not sign anything that you do not fully understand.
• Do not accept payment from individuals for a home you did not purchase.
• Seek out your own reverse mortgage counselor.

If you are a victim of this type of fraud and want to file a complaint, please submit information through our electronic tip line or through your local FBI office. You may also file a complaint with HUD-OIG at www.hud.gov/complaints/fraud_waste.cfm or by calling HUD’s hotline at 1-800-347-3735.

Source FBI: http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud/seniors/seniors#rms

Whether you are a male or a female, you should read this as the scenario below could easily apply to either gender. Months of online dating doesn't seem to be paying off. You're flipping through hundreds of profiles a night and everyone's either shallow or not that good looking. You finally think your luck is turning around when you hear from a lonely widow from Eastern Europe. She is gorgeous in her pictures and seems really into you! Alternatively, maybe you are a female and you just connected with a man working or being a soldier overseas.

After a few emails, you start to fall in love - and are thrilled to hear she reciprocates, calling you (after four to five months) "the love of her life". When it comes time for you two to get together, she tells you she needs money. Maybe she can't afford a plane ticket. Maybe she's sick and needs medicine. Maybe she lost her wallet in a foreign city or maybe she had a flood or a fire at her home. Or, one of the latest reasons ... she needs to take an AIDS test, which is required in her country before international travel.

Whatever it is, it seems like a small price to pay for true love - and it would be, if the love were "true". But this isn't who you thought it was - she may not even be a woman, but a guy in Nigeria. Don't feel bad: tens of thousands of men have fallen victim to this and tens of thousands more will

Despite the many legitimate dating websites operating around the world, there are many dating and romance scams as well. Dating and romance scams try to lower your defences by appealing to your romantic and compassionate side.

Some dating and romance scams work by setting up a dating website where you pay for each email or message you send and receive. The scammer will try to hook you in by continuing to send you vague-sounding emails filled with talk of love or desire. The scammer might also send emails filled with details of their home country or town that do not refer to you much at all. These are attempts to keep you writing back and paying money for use of the scammer’s dating website.

Even on a legitimate dating site, you might be approached by a scammer - perhaps someone who claims to have a very sick family member or who is in the depths of despair (often these scammers claim to be from Russia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia or another low wage country). After they have sent you a few messages, and maybe even a glamorous photo, you will be asked (directly or more subtly) to send them money to help their situation. Some scammers even arrange to meet with you, in the hope that you give them presents or money - and then they disappear.

In other cases, scammers will try to build a friendship with you, perhaps even sending you flowers or other small gifts. After building a relationship, the scammer will tell you about a large amount of money they need to transfer out of their country, or that they want to share with you. They will then ask for your banking details or money for an administrative fee or tax that they claim needs to be paid to free up the money.

Some sentiment con artists search out a specialty of different fixations where they will locate a dark interest and they will make the casualty believe that in the event that they pay for the con artist's plane ticket that they will get the chance to carry on a sexual dream of theirs by having the con artist come to them to engage in sexual relations. The con artists likewise like to lure casualties to perform sexual follows up on webcam. They then record their casualties, play back the recorded pictures or features to them and after that blackmail cash to keep them from sending the recordings to companions, family, executives, regularly found by means of online networking destinations, for example, Facebook, twitter and so forth.

The expert dater contrasts from alternate tricks in system for operation; a vis-à-vis meeting really does happen in the con artist's nation however is committed singularly into controlling the imprint into spending however much cash as could reasonably be expected in generally little time, with little or nothing consequently. The plan as a rule includes associates, for example, a mediator and a cab driver, all of which must be paid by the casualty at a swelled cost. Everything is pre-orchestrated so that the well off nonnative pays top dollar for convenience, is taken not to a standard open bistro but rather to the most exorbitant eatery (generally some off the beaten path spot evaluated far above what local people would ever be willing to pay), and is controlled into making different extravagant buys, including endowments, for example, hardware and fur garments.

The merchants are regularly some piece of the plan. The imprint allows pretty much as to sit unbothered yet poorer toward the end of the excursion. The stock is come back to the merchants, the genius dater and the different accessories stash their separate cut of the take. As the expert dater is anxious to date once more, the following date is instantly situated up with the following well off outsider.

The assumed relationship goes no further, but to immerse the hapless imprint with solicitations for more cash after they return home. Dissimilar to a gold digger, who weds for cash, an expert dater is not so much single or accessible, all things considered.

What makes this scam even worse is that most of the victims refuse to believe they have been scammed, even after they lost the first round of cash. They’ll keep putting in money, truly believing they are helping a future life-mate and ignore all advice from friends.

Protect yourself:

• Check website addresses carefully. Scammers often set up fake websites with very similar addresses to legitimate dating websites.
  
  
• You should never pay for somebody you have never met. Never send money, or give credit card or online account details to anyone you do not know and trust.
  
  
• If she insists on you paying for the plane ticket, buy it for her directly with no refund option. At least that way, he/she can't just take the money and run.
  
  
• Don’t give out any personal information in an email or when you are chatting online.
  
  
• Make sure you only use legitimate and reputable dating websites.
  
  
• Ask yourself if someone which you have never met really declare their love for you after only a few letters or emails?
  
  
• Run their name (even if they are fake) by professional companies that provide background checking of online dating users. There are just a few legitimate companies that provide this service.

With a normal expense of more than $5,000, funerals are likewise costly - and arranging one is a prime time to get covered in extortion.

Here are three approaches to maintain a strategic distance from the most well-known ploys.

1. Demand the "rundowns"
   At introductory contact, government law obliges that memorial service homes give you three evaluating records: one for all merchandise and administrations offered, another for coffins and a third for grave liners or "external internment holders."
   
   This supposed Funeral Rule additionally restricts burial service homes from obliging administrations that must be discretionary by law, (for example, preserving), or demanding that coffins and different things be straightforwardly acquired from them as a state of giving commemoration administrations. Nor would you be able to be charged additional for administrations on the off chance that you decide to purchase the coffin somewhere else, a typical approach to spare cash.
   
   
2. Prepaying? Utilization alert
   Long-range making arrangements for a burial service is constantly shrewd. Before there's a prompt need, your family - or even you - can examination shop with evaluating records close by and guarantee that courses of action are made precisely as sought. Yet, you can confront genuine hazard in prepaying for a memorial service, which you may do to lessen the monetary weight on your survivors or, as permitted in numerous states, to decrease your benefits so you can meet all requirements.
   
   Consider a late FBI bust of a prepaid memorial service conspire in which in the range of 97,000 individuals in 16 states lost more than $450 million in burial service products and administrations that were paid for ahead of time however never gave. Furthermore, there are unquestionably different situations where new proprietors purchase a burial service home and afterward keep running off with the cash.
   
   
3. Be careful with fake welcomes
   In numerous plans, burial service homes cheat you. Yet, another sort includes criminals taking your personality.
   
   As of late, outside based cybercrooks have been messaging fake burial service notices. Bearing the stolen name and logo of a true blue burial service home, it has all the earmarks of being a welcome to a memorial service or recognition administration for an anonymous companion or associate.
   
   By tapping on a connection or opening a connection, you can as far as anyone knows get subtle elements. Be that as it may, when you do, malware is unleashed on your PC to take records, passwords and other delicate data. Headlines are regularly "burial service notice" or "going of your companion." Don't take the goad! Authentic burial service warnings incorporate the name of the deceased.

Tips for Avoiding Funeral and Cemetery Fraud:

• Be an informed consumer. Take time to call and shop around before making a purchase. Take a friend with you who may offer some perspective to help make difficult decisions. Funeral homes are required to provide detailed general price lists over the telephone or in writing.
  
  
• Educate yourself fully about caskets before you buy one, and understand that caskets are not required for direct cremations.
  
  
• Understand the difference between funeral home basic fees for professional services and any fees for additional services.
  
  
• Know that embalming rules are governed by state law and that embalming is not legally required for direct cremations.
  
  
• Carefully read all contracts and purchasing agreements before signing and make certain that all of your requirements have been put in writing.
  
  
• Make sure you understand all contract cancellation and refund terms, as well as your portability options for transferring your contract to other funeral homes.
  
  
• Before you consider prepaying, make sure you are well informed. When you do make a plan for yourself, share your specific wishes with those close to you.
  
  
• As a general rule governing all of your interactions as a consumer, do not allow yourself to be pressured into making purchases, signing contracts, or committing funds. These decisions are yours and yours alone.

Attempting to purchase the wellspring of youth is similar to tossing cash into a dry wishing admirably. The cash is run and you're left with only purge jugs of unfilled guarantees. What's more, the boomer era is the precise business that makers of against maturing items - some genuine, some not - target.

It isn't only the creams and elixirs offered nowadays. Men and ladies of all ages can be casualties of futile supplements and perilous blends, for example, implied hormone-substitution treatments being sold by dishonest and unregulated sources.

Thus, before you purchase any against maturing item making enormous guarantees, know the notice indications of a trick and know the right things to ask.

At the point when spending your well deserved money on against maturing items, verify you are purchasing an item that works and are not purchasing a vacant guarantee.

In the event that a supplement or individual consideration item makes a case, request the exploratory confirmation to back it up. Verify that an impartial lab or outsider did the supporting studies, not the producer's group or any organization put resources into benefits. Make inquiries, for example, whether the trials were done on members in your age bunch and your ethnicity.

Try not to depend on Internet surveys. While a few retailers and autonomous audit destinations offer impartial client surveys, numerous web search tool results will convey audits made by and/or paid for by those advancing the item.

Advertisements squawk about a “secret formula,” or a “breakthrough,” but never define those terms or offer evidence. Other catchphrases to beware of are “scientific breakthrough,” “exclusive product,” “secret ingredient” or “active remedy.”

Also, a big name support isn't solid confirmation. Most famous people are remunerated to embrace an item. Furthermore, be mindful of individual testimonials that are deceiving.

Any case that says it is superfluous to counsel a specialist is a warning. Before beginning any eating routine, nourishing supplement or new wellbeing administration, you ought to check with your specialist.

What's more, remember when taking supplements that there may be a genuine danger of communication with doctor prescribed meds. Notwithstanding bundling or commercial cases, items you ingest or put on your skin or generally expend can conceivably have genuine symptoms.

What's more, don't succumb to the white scientist's jacket. Ordinarily producers will attempt to pass on believability by having the representative wear a white laboratory garment and even a stethoscope, giving the appearance they are a medicinal expert, or utilizing words, for example, "institutes" or "academies" to reinforce validity.

Consistently, a significant number of us do basic and safe things to enhance our wellbeing and appearance, for example, utilization sunscreen or spread the dim with haircolor. While there are numerous protected approaches to battle the presence of maturing, specialists caution buyers against becoming tied up with the thought that its anything but difficult to turn around the maturing procedure.

Some hostile to maturing items or systems asserts that the key is as simple as controlling a solitary hormone, or that their items is an off-mark use as an "option" to conventional and FDA-endorsed employments of the medication.

Tips for Avoiding Fraudulent "Anti-Aging" Products:

• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Watch out for "Secret Formulas" or "Breakthroughs".
  
  
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions about the product. Find out exactly what it should and should not do for you.
  
  
• Research a product thoroughly before buying it. Call the Better Business Bureau to find out if other people have complained about the product.
  
  
• Be wary of products that claim to cure a wide variety of illnesses - particularly serious ones - that don’t appear to be related.
  
  
• Be aware that testimonials and/or celebrity endorsements are often misleading.
  
  
• Be very careful of products that are marketed as having no side effects.
  
  
• Question products that are advertised as making visits to a physician unnecessary.
  
  
• Always consult your doctor before taking any dietary or nutritional supplement.