Every year it is the same thing - one scam or another, right around the holidays. This year is expected to be especially nasty, so I would suggest watching out for the following spam messages rolling into your inbox.

1. You’re approved! This is a common scam centering around the promise of an approved loan of some sort. Most cons know that we are all looking to spread out the cost of holiday spending and are all too happy to help get you caught up in a web of deceit.
2. Free grant money! Another promise of something for nothing. Often disguised as something legitimate, even going so far as to linking to real sources as references, this is a nasty scam that people tend to fall for all year long.
3. Crazy savings on prescription meds. Here in my home state, it is not unheard of for people to legally purchase their meds from Canada. Unfortunately, many con artists know this as well.
4. Congrats, you just won the lottery! Oh I loathe this one for sure. Generally used against those of their senior years and on a fixed income, this con has been used long before there was ever an Internet connection. Most often, the con artists will either call the mark on the phone or use a spam email message with tales of how that targeted person’s life, is about to change thanks to winning some foreign lottery. You might be surprised how many people fall for it.
5. This is the IRS, we are repossessing your money. Another one, often targeted as a “year-end” sort of thing, is a fake IRS notice, either via email or in some cases before the Internet really took off, via postal mail. I get these spam messages almost daily.

Rules to staying safe online. If it is something coming to you with promises of wealth, loans or worse yet, threats of government intervention remember this rule - email lies! As a rule, I also recommend against clicking links for anything that needs to be logged into via email. Yes, a lot of legitimate companies do this and all of them should be fined for such a sloppy, dangerous practice.

[tags]scams, con artists, spam[/tags]