There will never be a shortage of criminals who scam innocent people because there will never be a shortage of victims waiting to be scammed. Before technology we had the professional gamblers, remedy hawkers and grifters. Today they don’t even have to be on the same continent to scam a victim. The computer has made it a global fishbowl of victims just waiting to be hooked and taken.

The latest victim I just heard about is a relative. The vic called my half unit and asked about his computer acting up. After twenty years in the United States Air Force and then another twenty years with the United States Post Office, this relative should not have fallen victim but he did.

The scam was report ably an email from the United States Post Office. The message indicated my relative had a package at the post office that could not be delivered. He was directed to click onto the provided link, fill in the information and his package will be delivered.

My relative just last month moved from his home to a condominium so surmised, wrongly, that a package had been sent to the old address and he needed to give the new address to the Post Office. Although he had already done a change of address form, my relative clicked onto the web address and was of course redirected to a fake web site that had nothing to do with the post office. Reminder, my relative worked and retired from the United States Post Office and is well aware that the Post Office does not have a huge file of every person in the United States along with their email address.

Do not click onto a web site that you are not positive is the official site. Do not give any information to these web sites. If you are in doubt, call the sender of the email and ask if the email is legitimate. When a prescription plan or some such business that we do deal with calls my wife and asks for her name and date of birth, she responds, “No, I don’t know who you are. You called me. I will call the number I have for your business and ask for you.” The legitimate business will understand and not have a problem with it. The scam artist will try to argue and keep you talking until he can confuse you enough to provide information.

Remember these scammers live off their ability to fast talk and convince you they are legitimate. Nothing in the world is so important that you give up valuable information, money or anything to a criminal out of your kindness and desire to not be friendly. Don’t be what they used to call a “Hay seed.” Be wary of anything that does not seem right. That is why you have hairs on the back of your neck. They stand up when danger is around you.