By Travis Ristig

The Internet's best scams, schemes & cons are growing more powerful and more widespread seemingly everyday. Is there anything that we can do as individuals and as consumers to protect ourselves, our information and our money from the dangerous Internet environment? The good news is that the answer to that question is a resounding yes. By learning about the various available schemes and fraudulent techniques, you can better protect yourself in all situations.

The popular cases of online fraud include the auction frauds. In this case, criminals intentionally misrepresent a product that is put in auction in some unfamiliar. Auction fraud is even the most prevalent among the internet crimes that are associated with Romania. Other schemes and scams include credit card fraud, debt elimination, parcel courier and employment and business opportunities that use bogus foreign-based companies that are supposed to put people on some employment search websites. Lastly, we see notices right in our email spam saying that we have just won millions in the lottery and that we needed to pay a certain amount of money to secure our winnings.

All together you can break down the Internet's best scams, schemes & cons into several major categories. The first of which is described above as the auction and retail sales cons. With this you make purchases and spend money on items you will never receive, or on items that aren't what they are supposed to be. People are lured by seemingly great values and then end up stuck with a bill for nothing.

Auction cons are very common. With the auction con, you buy something that might not exist or you will never receive. If you do receive it, it's damaged or it's a fake. It's a complete waste of money and as soon as you pay for something, you'll never hear from the company again. Many people fall victim to the limitless array of work at home schemes and fraudulent business opportunities. The deal with these is usually that you can become involved with some millionaire making system, as long as you buy something now or sign up for some kind of expensive service.

Another type of internet fraud is identity theft, which mainly involve cases of wrongful means of obtaining and using someone elses personal data. The last type would be the online investment schemes, which involves the manipulation of securities and markets to earn personal yet illegal profit.

To help protect yourself and spot the phony from the real, you have to use some common sense. If a company is selling you something but there is no way to contact them or if they seem a little bit sketchy, then you shouldn't go through with any transactions. You have the power of the Internet at your disposal, which means you can research companies, individuals, products and more. Find out for yourself who is real and who isn't and see what other people on the Internet are saying about the person or company you are searching for.

Don't fall into the trap of believing something that is too outrageous and odd to really happen. Messages saying you won millions of dollars in the lottery for example. How is that possible without even entering the lottery? Similarly, those scams with people claiming to be royalty or millionaires but leading a loan for one reason or another don't make any sense. So don't pay them any mind and just delete these messages as soon as you receive them.

If you fall victim to one of the above Internet's best scams, schemes & cons, or any other type of online fraud, the good news is that you can take action. Contact your local police department as well as federal authorities who are vigilant in trying to increase consumer and household protection in the sometimes unguarded world of the Internet. By giving them the information of your own situation, you can help prevent future scams from taking place.

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