Word to the wise: If you get a call for one of those quick "surveys," ask some leading questions to make sure it's from a reputable firm such as Ipsos, Gallup, Strategic Counsel, SES or Léger. Today I had a follow-up from a call a couple weeks ago about whether I was enjoying my satellite radio service (of course, I am) and the operator invited me to fill in a survey to win $1000. I type in the address ...
... and my firewall throws up a red flag saying said site is a data miner. Good thing I couldn't get in.
Well, the fact is about half of web users, even in Canada and the United States, still don't have even elementary anti-virus detection let alone a firewall or a web blocker. Guess they were counting on me not having one either so they could steal money from my bank account.
I'm not that stupid. But lately I've been getting a lot of e-mails -- one to "confirm" my password at Amazon.com which turned out to be a third party phishing site (my account is at Amazon.ca, by the way) plus several more to confirm purchases I made at eBay (I don't have an account there at all!) And all those pesky PayPal confirmations (I don't have PayPal either).
Why aren't the ISPs trying to put a stop to fraud like this? It wastes our time, keeping us from sorting through real e-mail correspondence.
And of course it's not just limited to online purchases. My grandmother got taken advantage of a year ago and we still don't know who tried to ruin her good name (although in her case and a few others, the collection agency was right on top of things and decided correctly the defrauded really were innocent).
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