Sam Makad
Sam Makad is a business consultant. He helps small & medium enterprises to grow their businesses and overall ROI. You can follow Sam on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.
Have you ever been a victim of mail fraud? If yes, do not worry, here are five things that you can do to make sure that you minimize the damage when you suspect your email has been compromised.
Mail fraud is one of the well-known cybercrimes today that is rapidly finding its way towards every computer and mobile devices. It has achieved such a prominence that analyzing each and every email before clicking on it has become mandatory.
Generally, these fraudulent targets to acquire various personal data, such as bank account credentials, credit card details or other sensitive information. So that the fraudsters can exploit it to thieve the victim’s money; access online purchase in the victim’s name; or even for concealing their own identity when committing other crimes.
Discovering that you’re a victim of the email fraud is bound to be one of the most anxious and stressful moment, a person can experience. Luckily, there are ways to handle it appropriately, when you suspect your email has been compromised. Let’s see the most common ways among them.
1. Change your Login Credentials and Examine your Personal Email Settings
Once you’ve noticed that you fell for email fraudulence, the very first thing you should do is to reset your login password. This will probably assure you to cut down the further activities of the intruder, with your email.
While this being the preliminary action you should take, it’s not all that. Email scams today, are enacting various deceptive methods, for their operations.
Therefore, they’re capable of altering your personal email settings, like the automatic signature, etc. to hack your bank info. They even attempt to grab the passwords to your bank account, online payment, etc. through your email, without your knowledge.
Hence, you need to dig into your mailbox and examine your email settings; also consider setting up a 2-step verification for your email. Moreover, you should also reset your passwords on other websites. Ensure the new password is long and strong enough, and not similar to the old one.
2. Review your Bank Account Summary and Credit Card Statements
This is the second important thing to be noticed when you find that you’ve fallen for an email fraud. Almost all the email frauds focus on hacking your bank account and credit card data, by stealing your identity.
Fraudsters have found sneaky maneuvers, to elicit money from your bank accounts. Thus, in many cases, the victims don’t even know they’re being robbed.
The popular stratagem of late is to make online purchases, instead of making transaction to their accounts. They make tiny purchases initially, to test if their method works. The card/account holders don’t usually notice this minuscule charges.
Running through bank account summary helps in to identify various issues regarding this.
- Confirms, whether you’ve been robbed or not.
- Identifies, since when you’re being robbed.
- Total money you’ve lost to the fraudulence.
So, it’s better to review your bank statements, credit card report and recent online transactions on a regular basis; rather than getting paranoid by the time, you lost a huge sum of money. Anyway, we can make it a habit from now on, right?
3. Contact a Good Fraud Defense Lawyer
Email fraudulence can lead to ruinations, ranging from diminutive inconveniences to perilous entrapments. Therefore, taking appropriate legal actions against such cybercrimes becomes indispensable to lead them in the right way to sort it out.
As stated above, email fraudulence is tied closely with a multitude of crimes, and the laws against them have become stricter. With the right lawsuit, the fraudsters can be led to a penalty and even imprisonment, depending on the intensity and consequences of the offense. For those affected by such email frauds, consulting with experts like those at Twibellpierson can provide the necessary legal support to navigate the complexities of these crimes and seek justice.
But mind that a legal proceeding must be done with the assistance of a professional. Reach out to a good fraud defense lawyer, to combat such issues. They will be able to inform you about the various laws and case reviews, regarding your issues.
4. Lodge a Police Complaint and Issue a Fraud Alert to your Banks
Technology has come through massive improvements to shrewdly detect these kinds of hoax. And the cyber threats have also attained pertinent advancements, to surpass them. According to a recent report, over $57 million have been lost to these fraudulences, so far this.
This means that almost everyone, regardless of age, gender or education are susceptible of being ransacked by email frauds. But unfortunately, many of them don’t even report the issue, due to lack of knowledge on how to handle the issue.
Primarily, you need to understand that this is same as the real world crime. To be precise, thieving or scamming through the internet, can lead to even imprisonment, as punishments in almost all the countries. Therefore, it’s your right to register a complaint with the local cops when you've evidently been a victim of an email fraud.
The next thing you need to do after lodging a complaint is issuing a fraud alert on your credit card and bank account. This will alert the appropriate staff to be more cautious on your account, as it prone to be compromised.
If you still suffer recurrent attacks, then you can even request, an extended fraud alert to be placed on your account. In our concern, you can also freeze your credit card transactions or bank account transactions, on repetitive fraudulence. So that the fraudster would be stopped from using it.
5. Report to your Email Service Provider
If you suspect or come to know that your email account is compromised and targeted for a mail fraud; don’t hesitate, to report it to your email provider. Every email site will have provisions to report difficulties like this:
- Yahoo mail has entitled their reporting feature as “I can’t access my account” on its front page.
- Google has a separate set of instructions for “Compromised Gmail account” and “Someone is sending from my address” in the Security & Privacy section.
- In Microsoft’s Outlook, you can use the option “Can’t access your account?”
If all these options don't work for you, report the incident to their service desk, from your friend’s email id.
Don’t fail to report the nature of the incident and its source (sender’s email id). The email service providers can help you get your account back up and running if it’s been hacked. They can also freeze your account, in case of suspicious activities, so that the fraudsters couldn’t go any further.
Beyond that, they also make a note of, the kind of the issue and the notoriety of the source. Thus, it not only helps you but also who are prone to such attack in future.
Closing point
Mail theft often goes unnoticed, until the loss becomes hefty, as cyber thieves today are extremely sneaky. Having your personal email stolen, can make you vulnerable and unnerved, for varied dismissive consequences. But, by following all the things enlisted above, can help you overcome it shrewdly and prevent it happening, in the future.
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