Advanced Fee Scams

Advanced Fee scams basically involve fraudsters tricking their victims into forwarding money in advance for something that is claimed to be of greater value, such as an investment project, prize money, a loan or even gifts.  These scams can also be used for the purposes of identity theft, and in order to obtain your personal financial details the fraudster will ask you to pay the advance money by credit card or by providing your bank details, and then use this information to run up a number of fraudulent charges and also to apply for new credit accounts in your name for the same purpose.  For example the fraudster could claim that you have won a free gift, but in order to receive this you need to pay handling and shipping fees immediately over the phone, using your credit or debit card.  Or a fraudster may claim you have won a cash prize, but that they need your bank details in order to pay you the prize.

It is very important that you treat any unsolicited calls informing you that you have won a prize in a draw you never entered, or offering you amazing ‘low risk, high profit’ opportunities as highly suspect, especially if you are asked to pay money in advance.  You should never give out your sensitive financial account details over the phone to unsolicited callers, as you have no way of knowing if they are genuine, or whether they will treat your information securely and not pass it on to third parties.  Fraudsters can be very convincing and can use some very sophisticated high pressure techniques to try and push you into agreeing to something before you have had time to think it through, so always be very wary of anyone trying to force you into rushing into anything or who will not take no for an answer – just put the phone down on them.