BEWARE OF MALICIOUS SCAMS AND PHISHING

Phishing: Masquerading as a trustworthy entity, via fake website, fake phone numbers, fake email addresses, fake regular mail, etc. in order to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, phone numbers, name & address, credit card information, etc.

Scammers (fraudulent individuals) use any information medium available in order to get information from us. Decades ago they only had telephones and regular mail. However, now-a-days they have added emails, fake websites, and smart phones to their information mediums.

There are many ways to detect some of the scams. Most smart phones can detect possible scammers. So do NOT answer a phone call that your phone signals as a possible scam. Instead, call back, after they hang up. And you will probably get a message that says "that phone number is not in service". That verifies that it was a scammer.

Beware of emails from hotmail.com, one of scammer's favorite email providers.

Beware of emails claiming that your prescription refill is ready, unless it actually comes from the pharmacy that you normally use. Do not open any links included in that email. Instead call your pharmacy to verify that it is true.

And here is an example of a possible phishing scam via post office regular mail. It looks very legitimate. However, I could not verify, with amazon, that it was legitimate. Amazon does not provide us with a phone # or a website chat, where we could verify if it is real. Therefore I did not scan the QR-code nor would I follow their instructions. All email from amazon comes from amazon.com, why would they use hotmail.com? They could have gotten my name and address from many places, but they obviously do not know my phone number nor my amazon account. That is the data they are trying to get. And they are trying to get some malicious code into my smart phone. And they print $50 in big numbers to attract our attention, but that will not work on me. And notice that the post card does NOT have a return address, so who sent it?





Could amazon be conspiring with a third party in order to get my smart-phone number?
They do keep asking me for my phone number when ever I login, just like facebook does.
However, if they do not provide me with their phone number, then why should I provide them with mine.

And they probably hate that I login from a desktop computer running a secured OS (not Apple OS nor Windows). They would like me to login using a smart-phone running iOS or Android. That's not going to happen.