Good day everyone!  I'm Jeff N Marquis at the business desk and this evening I'd like to zoom in on the increasing number of scammers playing havoc with our lives.  On the phone, on the Internet, on our doorstep, and almost everywhere.

A few weeks ago I read an article off the news wires where they talked about two senior ladies who managed to scam millions of dollars from some insurance companies out in California.  These two innocent looking ladies managed to carry out their scam for over seven years and they did it in the simplest of ways.  I like many others was quite surprised to read this and I guess that my surprise came about because I did not expect two older ladies to do this.  However, I should not be surprised and you too should not be because of the rapidly increasing number of scammers all over the place.  These days they are cropping up in all sizes:  From the youngest to the oldest.  Male and female.  Acting on their own or working with others.  Posing as charitable organizations or showing up at our doors campaigning for charitable causes.  Selling bogus tickets for non existent raffles or prizes.  Offering vacation trips that do not exist.  Promoting contests, hard to turn down offers, and dream of a lifetime moneymaking schemes, and on and on.  

A recent survey revealed that the number of known scams rose by over 40% in America last year and it is estimated that somewhere in the world a scam is hatched every five seconds.  Very scary and very concerning for us all.  We need to become more watchful and much more cautious.  We need to do our research much more before entering into any type of relationship with any type of marketer or marketing agency.  If someone phones you offering you the opportunity to buy enticing shares from a very profitable company, just hang up.  Don't even entertain the idea of wanting to know more.  If you are uncomfortable hanging up then ask for their phone number and call them back.  When you call them back do your best to ascertain as much info as you can about the offer and tell the person at the other end of the line that you need time to think about it.  Next you should tell someone about it and ask their opinion.  Tell the person you trust most and a person who can help you to make a safe and sound decision.  You will find that nine out of 10 times no legitimate company would ever make you an offer over the phone.

If you receive a similar type of offer on the Internet via email, just delete it and forget about it.  If you receive an email asking you to verify your banking details then simply ignore it.  Under no circumstances should you even attempt to login and verify any of your banking details, your password, or your email address or username. 

I can go on and on but I hope that this is enough to get you starting to be more watchful and on the lookout.  If you'd like to read the article that I mentioned above then visit www.sterlingcreations.ca and check out the September issue of their free online magazine.

Have a good evening.

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