It feels like an uninteresting topic this, but if it helps one person then it was worth it. It’s about being the victim of a scam. I have received quite a few warning emails from service providers over the past few months: Liberty Life, Allan Gray, Marriott, Momentum… There are even scam emails coming from addresses looking like SARS, with an attachment for you to open. That’s another one… an attachment arriving from an email address that might be new to you. Then you open it. We don’t anymore, we send it to our IT guy first. Or I ask Adrienne, she’s the IT guru in our office.
I know of a few of you who have been scammed in some way or other, because you have told me. I too, have been a victim over the past 18 months of my airtime being scammed, as well as my bank account via the Banking App. Not proud of this. Don’t like talking about it. After one response to a call or a message, someone is beginning to tempt you to talk to them for longer. Or answer what appears to be a simple and harmless question.
All I want to leave you with, is suggesting that you are very careful about responding to any SMS that doesn’t make sense or answering any phone number you don’t recognise or are expecting, or that doesn’t come from an action you requested. Rather end the call or action and phone the service provider back yourself through their listed numbers.
I usually don’t answer anything I don’t recognise anymore. Or I answer and want to know within 5 seconds what you want and if you cannot tell me, I’ll end the call. Sounds a bit rude… I know. But it’s a scary world now. Where are those days when things arrived in your post box or you had to be home to get a phone call….