Cyber criminals continually prey on small businesses. We’ve seen email scams posing to be a wedding planning couple, soliciting to send you payment for your services even before talking to you. Others attempt to get you to open a attachment in order to mine your email contact list. Recently, a new scam has surfaced across the bridal show industry offering to sell leads from local bridal shows. These emails have been sent from a variety of email addresses and non-existent URLs.
Here are a few tips to help analyze email solicitations and protect yourself against scams:
• Does the company in question have a website?
• Is the email address the same as any company URL that might be listed?
• Does the company have a social media feed?
• Do they have a physical location?
• Do they have a Better Business Bureau Rating?
• Does their phone number come up with any SPAM/Scam results in search?
• Can you find the sales person at that company on LinkedIn?
While using these steps don’t guarantee that you will be protected, you will find that most scams will not be able to pass this simple test.
