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Don’t Give Your Data to Scam Artists

Everyone has heard about the Nigerian scam letter that asks for your help to transfer a large sum of money to an organization in a foreign country. Your reward will be a percentage of that money, but first, you must tell the scammer your bank account details. Of course you didn’t fall for that, but you’d be surprised to learn how many intelligent people have been duped in this way. Here’s how scam artists work.

By Guy Robertson

Guy Robertson is a senior emergency planner, auditor and trainer at TMC and an instructor at the Justice Institute of BC and Langara College. He has written five books and hundreds of articles on disaster planning, and offered workshops and lectures at conferences across North America and in the UK.

How They Connect

There are three common communication techniques to defraud you:

Scam artists generally manipulate you with greed fear, or your desire to be helpful.

Greed

Fear

Asking For Help

Just Say No

Remember that it is your right to refuse to chat with anyone on the phone or through social media. First, your bank will never call you for assistance with an undercover investigation, nor will the police. If someone asks that you keep the details of their call a secret, assume the worst about them. If someone tries to rush you to make a decision regarding any transfer of funds, ask yourself if this makes sense. If your “CEO” emails to instruct you to transfer money outside of normal procedures or share corporate information with a stranger, raise the alert with your management and take the burden off yourself.

If you’d like to comment on this article or explore these ideas further, contact me at

This article was published in the January 2024 edition of The TMC Advisor
- ISSN 2369-663X Volume:11 Issue:1

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