How I Caught a Scammer!

I have a doozy for you today. A scammer came after yours truly! It all started when I got this email over the summer:

The email was perfectly set up to look like a mistaken order. In the body of the email there was a photo of a $700 gaming laptop that had been allegedly purchased under my name. There was information on the shipping speed, an estimated delivery date, and a delivery address in Cincinnati (which is not where I live). Below that, there was everything that you would expect to see in a legit order confirmation: there was an order number, an order date and a shipment confirmation.

I promise you, I’m always on high-alert for these types of things, but this email looked really convincing. I knew something was fishy because I didn’t buy a gaming computer (Nicole Lapin does not play games), but my first thought was that maybe there had been some mistake, or my email was used to place someone else’s order.

However, there was one major clue: the sender’s name popped up as “Shipment Confirmed,” but the actual email address was a personal gmail address registered to someone named Eric.That was a big tip-off. Companies send shipping confirmation from email addresses with their domain in it— like [email protected], or whatever Walmart actually uses. A big company like Walmart would never send a shipping confirmation from a personal gmail. The only conclusion: Mr. Eric was trying to scam me! There was a phone number in the email, so I called him up so I could call him out. I recorded the whole thing so you could see how it went down. Check it out:

Isn’t that nuts!?

I did some research on the program and found out that this software allows remote access into your computer. If you work in an office, you may have a similar program on your laptop so that your company’s IT department can access your computer remotely if you ever need some tech help. But this scammer was not doing this so he could help me with my IT needs! With remote access to my computer, he could log into websites where I have my information saved, like my bank account, my email, my next book, whatever he wanted. He would have free rein of my digital life.

Scammers keep getting savvier, and I want to help you protect yourself. Here are three things you can do to make sure you don’t fall victim to a scam:

1. If a company you know (like your bank, your university, your job, whatever) calls you and asks you for any of your personal information, even if you have an account with them, you need to verify that the person calling you is legit. An easy way to verify that you’re being called by an actual representative from the company, is to ask for their extension, and tell them that you’ll call them back on the number that’s on the company’s website.

Even if the representative that’s calling you doesn’t have an extension, you should still call the company’s main line. Any representative working for the company should be able to help you with whatever it was you were called about in the first place, if the call was legit.

2. Check the email address. This was what tipped me off to my scam. There could be a totally unsuspecting name associated with the email, like “shipping confirmation,” but check the actual email address itself. Are there typos? Is it from the company’s domain? Or is it from Yahoo? If the email address is from a personal email, move that email to trash ASAP.

3. Stay away from links. We’ve all been told not to open links from unknown numbers or emails, but what if the link looks like it’s coming from a company or from someone you do know? Before you double click, take an extra step to verify the sender. If you got a link from a company, even if it’s a big company like Walmart, give the company a call to verify whatever information they’re sending you. If you’re being told that you just “click the link to claim the prize,” any employee can tell you whether there’s actually a promotion going on, or if that “prize” is actually a computer virus.

I know we all think we’re impervious to scams, but if a scammer can come for me, a scammer can come for you. And I just want to prevent you from feeling like this…

xo,

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