Internet scams: how to avoid them and what to watch out for

Given the resurgence of scams being made on the internet, here are the 4 most common scams: they all aim to gain your trust to access your money.

Here are our tips to best protect you against malicious attacks:

LOVE SCAMS

Romance scams take place when an attacker assumes a false identity online to gain a victim’s affection and trust. This malicious person pretends to have an intimate relationship to manipulate the victim into giving him money.

Care should be taken when a person:

• Promptly declares love and affection; • claims to be a resident of your country, but is abroad for business or because they are in the military. • claims to need money for emergencies, hospital bills or urgent trips; • claims that his bank account was blocked by mistake and needs you to send him money.

CORPORATE IDENTITY THEFT

Scammers pretend to be a well-known company (for example, an e-commerce company or a software company’s technical support). They claim that your account or software has been compromised and your money is at risk. They can put you in touch with a banking specialist to back up their story.

Tips to avoid identity theft scams:

• never allow support personnel (or anyone else) to access your device remotely; • never give out your passwords.

INVESTMENT SCAMS

Investment scammers ask you to invest money for high returns, often promising very little or no financial risk. In general, they ask the “investors” to recruit others.

Tips to avoid investment scams:

• Be especially skeptical of websites or services promising high returns or unrealistic investment opportunities. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. • send money or cryptocurrencies only to trusted third parties. See publicly verifiable reviews or articles from a credible news organization that cite their sources.

GOVERNMENT SCAMS

Fraudsters pretend to be administrative and governmental agencies, such as services such as the public treasury, the CAF, the Pôle emploi, a prefecture, the bank of France or even a police investigation service (La police, La gendarmerie, or Interpol), they claim that your bank account has been blocked and that you must transfer your money to a cryptocurrency account. They can also include fake bank representatives to be more believable.

Tips for avoiding government scams:

• government agencies and almost never contact you directly by phone, text or email; • hang up and contact the government agency directly via their public website and official contact details.

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