“Is this your wallet, honey?” is how the stranger got my elderly mother to roll down her window.  She had gone to the Dollar General store down the street to get a few items, just as she has done for the past 10 years.  My mom told her no, then the stranger went around and got into the car and told her to drive.  The stranger asked my mom all sorts of financial questions before being dropped off at a nearby Dollar General Store.  She told my mom to wait right there.  Luckily, my mom dropped her off and then got someone to call the police.

I was extremely upset to hear my mother’s story when she got home and quickly talked to her about instantly locking her doors whenever she enters her car, no matter her location, and other safety tips.  As unemployment continues to soar, it appears some people are getting desperate, a desperation that makes them go after folks that shop at the Dollar General Store!    We should all take precaution, for ourselves and our families, against scammers in the parking lot, the neighborhood, or online.   This article will be part of a series to protect you from fraud at home and online.  I’m not an expert on this topic but will share advice from individuals who are, as well personal lessons learned.

Online, two of  my friends had their facebook pages and Hotmail accounts hijacked by a spammer supposedly in need of some cash in London.  These two people don’t know each other: one lives in Alabama and one in Argentina.  The incidences happened several months apart, but interestingly the spammer had the same story.  I have been receiving a lot of spam financial award emails, such as winning the lottery or a BMW, supposedly from London, as well.  I can tell they are spam for many reasons; primarily, they’re too good to be true.  The origin of the spam is most likely from China or Russia whose governments don’t have anti-spamming laws.

How does this happen? Basically, if your email is posted on the Internet, then a list gathering tool called a Web spider could collect it for a spammer.  Also, if you are in a public chat room, generally your first part of the email is your chat name and it is fairly easy to figure out what your Internet provider is, especially if it is one of the free ones like Hotmail or Yahoo. Moreover, always completely log off and close the Internet browser whenever you use a public computer.  Make sure you have a spam filter for your email account, and a strong anti-virus program for your computer!

There are several ways that your email can be used against you, but how did they get your password?  If your password is weak, then spammers will figure it out (or if you didn’t properly log out, as mentioned above).  According to Microsoft Online Safety, the keys to password security are length and complexity:

“An ideal password is long and has letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers.

• Whenever possible, use at least 14 characters or more.
• The greater the variety of characters in your password, the better.
• Use the entire keyboard, not just the letters and characters you use or see most often.”

Unfortunately, the times we feel most comfortable, and therefore let down our guard, are usually when we’re at home including online, running errands, or hanging out in our neighborhood.  Since we are unemployed, like the retired, we have more time to interact with others that we meet around town or online, but unfortunately this includes opportunities for scammers and spammers.  The next articles will focus on how to protect your financial identity online and (snail) mail fraud.

Your blogger,

Sandra Annette Rogers