Scammers get trickier in pursuit of your money

In the past few days I have received two separate text messages that appeared to come from both Amazon and Venmo, telling me that my account was locked because of “multiple failed login attempts to your account.” Each had a link to a webpage where I could “recover my account,” but in both cases, they were scams. Had I clicked on those links and provided my login information, the thieves would have had access to my accounts.

I'm immediately suspicious of any messages I get telling me about a lock-out or security issue because they are very often scams. In these cases, I knew for sure, because the weblinks didn't end in “amazon. com” or “venmo. com” so it was obvious to me that they were sending me to a scam site. But it was only obvious because I inspected the links carefully. In some cases, the link may include the name of the legitimate organization but end with something else. There are ways that they can still trick you by spoofing a web address or just putting in the name of the site without the actual address, so when you see something that could possibly be suspicious, your best bet is to log into the site manually as you normally would. For example, if you get a message that your Amazon

account has been locked, log-in at www.amazon.com and see what happens. Chances are it's not locked and the message was a scam. If it is locked, you'll see a message when you try to log in, and as long as you're 100% sure you're at the right site (check the URL to be sure), it's OK to go through the recovery process.

You don't even need a computer or smartphone to get scammed. I also get phone calls that claim to be from Costco, Marriot, Hilton or other reputable companies, typically offering a “free vacation” or some other temptation. These days I just hang up, but I've at times questioned