Introduction To Fraud

What is fraud?

Fraud is a deceptive practice that is intended to result in personal or financial gain. Fraud involves a false representation of facts by intentionally withholding info or by the use of false statements. Basically, if you lie to gain something from another, it is fraud.

Over the course of the next several weeks, we will dive deep into the topic of fraud. How it looks, how it may affect you, and what you can do to prevent it. In a world where technology is evolving at an unprecedented pace, it can be incredibly difficult to stay on top of the constant barrage of threats to your personal and financial information. Hopefully, you will come out of this series with a basic knowledge of the concept of fraud as well as several ways to spot (and prevent) fraud from happening to you. In the unfortunate case that you do become of a victim of fraudulent activity, you will also know how to work with your financial institution to prevent any further damage.

Some examples of fraud:

1. Jane is browsing Facebook, and sees an advertisement for a pair of shoes she really likes. She clicks the link, and notices the shoes are 85% off retail value. She chooses her style, enters her card information and checks out. After several weeks she never receives the shoes. She tries to find a phone number for the company, but there isn't one, and the email she sends never gets returned. Later, she notices several other purchases on her statement that she did not authorize. This is fraud.
2. Bob gets a text from an unknown number stating that he has won a lottery. All he needs to do to claim his winning money is to pay a small processing fee to get the funds deposited into his account. Bob pays the fee and texts his bank account information to the person. Bob never receives his "winnings", but he did lose the money on the fee, and a stranger has his bank account information. This is fraud.
3. Alex uses an online dating app and meets Maria. They text every day and really hit it off. Within the first month, Maria says she is going to be homeless, and asks Alex for some money for a hotel room. Then she needs to fix her car, but is short $100. After another few months of this, Alex has given Maria almost $2000. Then, randomly, Maria disappears and Alex never hears from her again. This is fraud.

Keep yourself safe and up to date...

Follow our social media for more posts coming soon! Each will outline a facet of fraud that you need to know about.