Gretchen WBR Scheming and Scamming

 Some new terms we learned this week are scam, identity theft, vulnerable, and phishing. Scam means an attempt to trick someone, usually with the intention of stealing money or private information. Identity Theft is a type of crime in which your private information is stolen and used for criminal activity. Vulnerable is where you’re in a position that makes it easier for you to be harmed or attacked. Phishing is when people send you phony e-mails, pop-up messages, social media messages, texts, calls, or links to fake websites in order to hook you into giving out your personal and financial information.

Our digital literacy component for this week was scheming and scamming. Scheming and scamming is when you can get your identity stolen and can pretty much ruin your life.. credit wise. The kinds of personal information identity thieves look for is your name, bank account number, social security number, DOB, and your phone number/address. Things that could happen if your identity is stolen is that you could lose money, become bankrupt, you can be blocked from accounts, serve jail time, you would become responsible for purchased items, and it could bring your credit score down A LOT. 5 rules you can follow to protect yourself from online scamming are that you should always avoid opening the message or email in the first place, don’t click on any links or download any attachments; they might contain viruses or spyware, don’t reply, mark as “junk mail” or “spam” for your email provider, or report it to your social network site, and if you are concerned about an account you have with a company, contact its customer service department by phone. Make sure you verify the company’s contact information elsewhere online first.

This helps me in my personal life because this could help me from getting my identity stole. This helps me in my academic life because someone can steal my identity at school and get into all of my school files and ruin everything I have saved. This helps me in my interactions online because now I know that to never open up any phony e-mails I get because they could contain a virus or spyware and that I could get my identity stole.

Overall, my week has been amazing! This week is going to be even better though. I have a lot of stuff going on, and a few things to celebrate. This upcoming week is going to be awesome.

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