5 Most Common Consumer Cons To Be Aware Of

These days there are such a variety of cons that you can become a victim of these days, and they are just becoming more and more sophisticated and diverse. It's important to be aware of what types of cons are common and how to be on your guard against them. We don't claim this is a comprehensive guide and new cons are being thought up all the time but here are a few of the ones to most be aware of.

Card Cloning
Everyone has a bank card these days and with contactless payment systems taken in almost every business, it has never been more convenient to pay for goods and services. But for slick thieves, it's also easy to clone your card using an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) device that scans your card without even seeing your card due to the contactless technology it contains. There are RFID blocking wallets on the market to help protect you.

Bogus Emails
Ever since email was invented has there been the scam email on the scene. But these days you are unlikely to get anything as obvious as the old Nigerian Prince looking to get your bank details to get money out of the country scam, it's much more sophisticated than that. You may get an email pretending to be from a bank, with a message and a link to login, never log in from a link, always type the web address manually in the browser. Or, you sometimes get a link in an email that installs suspicious software without you even knowing it.

Phone Scams
Phone scams have also always been around and if you can think of something that a crook may pretend to be, then they probably have tried it, such as these recent social security phone scams.

You can use technology to manage these calls, for example, once you've had a malicious call you should block that number so that you don't get bothered again from the same people.

Identity Theft
Identity theft is one that is a relatively new form of con and is almost always an online one. Personal data is key here and they will want all the obvious stuff such as name, address, date of birth but other info you may not think of is key, basically stuff like where you went to primary school, first pets name, anything that may be a banking security question and a classic way of getting this is social media quizzes and share games, so be aware of these which seem like innocent fun but are anything but.

Fake Charity Workers
The fake charity worker has been around for quite some time but in the past they would have got a few coins from your purse, these days they are after your banking details and this can be done in person or online. I would always be careful to not give away personal and banking details to anyone you are at all suspicious of to protect yourself.