Internet safety

A lot of it is just learning what to be on guard for. I fell prey to a phishing scam once and had to change my bank accounts and email accounts and passwords. I was lucky I realized what had happened right away before they were able to do anything to me...I mean, like, as soon as I hit the "send" button I realized something was wrong so I called my sister and described to her what had happened and she said, "you've been phished!" Another sister of mine wasn't so lucky. She got her email account hacked and suddenly all her friends and family were getting emails asking for money from her email address. It didn't sound like her so i emailed back and got an even weirder response so tried to call her. She did return my call and yes, they had taken over her email addy and she was locked out of it and had to change accounts altogether. These were potentially disastrous events but because we listened to our inner alarms we were able to avoid the problem. I have always been very cautious about anything that I got involved with over the internet. I still get spam claiming to be from a familiar bank that says there's a problem with my account...but I have no account at that bank. Also, I got one from Paypal supposedly, only it came to the address that isn't my Paypal email address so I knew it was a fraud. Last year I "hired on" supposedly as an "accounts receivable" clerk for an art gallery in New York. I was supposed to accept money orders, bank my commission and send the rest of the money to them. When I got the first money orders, though, my alarms were going off because the instructions that came with them said I was to Western Union the cash to Nigeria. Why am I sending money to Nigeria if the gallery is in New York? I checked with my bank. They told me to call the company that the money order was supposed to be printed from. The money order was a counterfeit! The man I spoke to showed me what to look for to see that it was counterfeit and then told me that fraud was the number one industry in Nigeria! What a learning experience! Bottom line, it pays to pay attention and be informed. The internet can be a powerful tool or a weapon. It always pays to be on your guard. One thing I have a hard fast rule about - I NEVER pay a website that claims I'm going to make money on them. If I have to pay, it's a scam.