Quite often when this writer logs onto the Internet and checks his email he finds a message notifying him that he is able to obtain free products, including free laptops. Once in a while, despite his best efforts to protect against them, this writer also falls victim to pop-ups advertising free laptops.
This writer undertook a bit of poking around regarding a free laptops offer that landed in his email in-box not long ago. In the end, he found himself at a strange looking Internet Website at which he was asked to provide a good deal of personal information, including his Social Security number. In other words, this writer had fallen into a scam, and a very unsophisticated one at that.
When a person is offered a free anything on the Internet – or anywhere else for that matter – that person must be very suspicious and cautious. Seldom in life, as the old adage goes, is anything ever given for free without a bunch of strings attached.
The free laptops bait is fairly common on the Internet. Once in a while – once in a blue moon, indeed – a bona fide and reputable company will offer free laptops as part of a market research project. But, as mentioned above, more often than not, an offer of free laptops likely is part of some sort of scam.
It is important to keep in mind that the scam this writer followed was an easy one to uncover. However, in this day and age, scams of this nature are far more sophisticated. People in today’s world do not readily pass out personal information. But, some scam artists engage a person over time, drawing a person’s trust.
In today’s world, it must not only be a matter of the buyer being aware, but the person considering a free offer as well.