scams
Money
2:30PM Angus Kidman | Scammers are forever thinking up new ways to part consumers from their money, but often nothing more than a mildly convincing pitch for an in-demand product is needed. More »
Online Ticketing Scams On The Rise
2:30PM Angus Kidman | Scammers are forever thinking up new ways to part consumers from their money, but often nothing more than a mildly convincing pitch for an in-demand product is needed. More » 
Fix
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Scammers are constantly coming up with new and creative ways to wreck computer security. As I report over at APC, the latest hoax to hit Australia is a telephone call claiming to be from either Microsoft or a security software firm, saying that an infection has been detected on your PC and offering to walk you through the fix process. Unsurprisingly, far from fixing the PC, the process completely compromises the machine, making it ripe for further exploitation. Adding insult to injury, the caller then asks for credit card details for a service fee. While most Lifehacker readers are probably savvy enough to avoid this kind of scam, it might be worth mentioning to any credulous friends or relatives. If you’re looking to keep your machine secure, check out our Hive Five on the best antivirus software.
PHONE CON: No, that is not “Microsoft” calling [APC]
More »
Watch Out For Fake Microsoft Support Calls
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Scammers are constantly coming up with new and creative ways to wreck computer security. As I report over at APC, the latest hoax to hit Australia is a telephone call claiming to be from either Microsoft or a security software firm, saying that an infection has been detected on your PC and offering to walk you through the fix process. Unsurprisingly, far from fixing the PC, the process completely compromises the machine, making it ripe for further exploitation. Adding insult to injury, the caller then asks for credit card details for a service fee. While most Lifehacker readers are probably savvy enough to avoid this kind of scam, it might be worth mentioning to any credulous friends or relatives. If you’re looking to keep your machine secure, check out our Hive Five on the best antivirus software.
PHONE CON: No, that is not “Microsoft” calling [APC]
More »
Money
1:08PM Angus Kidman | It’s National Consumer Fraud Awareness Week, which seems like a sound reason to revisit the topic of how to avoid getting fleeced online. Advice on how to avoid getting ripped off often seems obvious — but the continuing success of scams clearly suggests that obvious advice is often ignored. More »
Internet Scams Thrive In Tough Times
1:08PM Angus Kidman | It’s National Consumer Fraud Awareness Week, which seems like a sound reason to revisit the topic of how to avoid getting fleeced online. Advice on how to avoid getting ripped off often seems obvious — but the continuing success of scams clearly suggests that obvious advice is often ignored. More »
Fix
11:58AM Angus Kidman | Nigerian scam emails — you know, “I am the widow of the late head of Nigerian national bank and I need to smuggle $US5 billion out of an account, will you help me for a cut of the profits?” — make much more amusing reading than your typical Viagra-laden spam, but still need to head pronto to your email trash. Unfortunately, there’s a sucker born every minute who falls for this kind of con. Mahesh Sharma at AustralianIT reports on a rare scam with a happy ending: Queensland Police co-operated with the Nigerian Economic Financial Crimes Commission to apprehend a young man alleged to have bilked a Queenslander out of $20,000. While it’s good to know that not all online criminals get away with it, it’s always worth remembering the basic rule: no-one is about to send you a large amount of money for no effort. Don’t respond, just ditch it.
Nigerian held on Web fraud [AustralianIT]
More »
Nigerian Scammers Getting Caught Is No Reason To Succumb
11:58AM Angus Kidman | Nigerian scam emails — you know, “I am the widow of the late head of Nigerian national bank and I need to smuggle $US5 billion out of an account, will you help me for a cut of the profits?” — make much more amusing reading than your typical Viagra-laden spam, but still need to head pronto to your email trash. Unfortunately, there’s a sucker born every minute who falls for this kind of con. Mahesh Sharma at AustralianIT reports on a rare scam with a happy ending: Queensland Police co-operated with the Nigerian Economic Financial Crimes Commission to apprehend a young man alleged to have bilked a Queenslander out of $20,000. While it’s good to know that not all online criminals get away with it, it’s always worth remembering the basic rule: no-one is about to send you a large amount of money for no effort. Don’t respond, just ditch it.
Nigerian held on Web fraud [AustralianIT]
More »
Fix
9:12PM Angus Kidman | A new local survey from longstanding free antivirus favourite AVG gives some interesting insights into where Australians get caught out online. Now, this should be put into context: the survey found that 39% of Australians had been a victim of some kind of ‘cyber theft’, which is less than half of us. But which were the most common problems?
More »
Where Australians go wrong online
9:12PM Angus Kidman | A new local survey from longstanding free antivirus favourite AVG gives some interesting insights into where Australians get caught out online. Now, this should be put into context: the survey found that 39% of Australians had been a victim of some kind of ‘cyber theft’, which is less than half of us. But which were the most common problems?
More » 
Keepm Stores All Your Contacts in One Place
1:00PM Adam Pash | Store all of your online contacts in one place with web application Keepm. If you’ve run the gamut of popular email applications across the years, chances are you may have lost track of a few contacts along the way. Keepm imports your contacts from popular applications like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL, Linked In, as well as from vCards or Outlook. When you need to search for a contact, you can go straight to Keepm and be comfortable knowing that the information you need is there regardless of where you originally created that contact. You can also export your contacts from Keepm at any time as vCards or a CSV file, which means it would at the very least work well to consolidate and export your contacts. Keepm does require you to hand over your username and password on the sites you want to import contacts from, but they do not store your login info on their servers. Keepm [via CyberNet] More »
Avoid Bait and Switch Scams on Digital Cameras
2:00AM Kevin Purdy | Computer magazine Maximum PC posts up a helpful guide to finding deals on electronic gifts this shopping season without getting taken advantage of—either by con artists or the retailers themselves. In particular, the magazine recommends staying away entirely from too-good-to-be-true digital camera deals from independent retailers. That’s because after you place your order: Months later, you still haven’t received your camera. You call the vendor, and you’re given a song and dance about it being back-ordered because of X excuse, (but) would you like to buy the camera bundle with some accessories for $1,700? … If you fall for the up-sell … you’ll notice that your package bundle includes (only) the battery and charger (which are normally included with the camera for MSRP). If you give up and cancel the order, you’ve wasted a ton of time, you don’t have a camera, and the company has had your $600 for three months. Also worth checking out before making those major gift purchases are how to avoid warranty problems and tips on spotting holiday shopping scams. Photo by orangeacid. Seven Rules for Safer Holiday Shopping [Maximum PC] More »
