10 features of money fraud

Thousands of people become victims as a result of money fraud. There are many ways how to trick somebody out of money but the most common nowadays are dating websites and finance pyramids. How to recognize that you are almost caught by scammer and make yourself stop when you see symptoms of fraud, we will review in this article.

The very often ways when you can be scammed it’s building “relationship” on the date site or investing money into financial pyramid. If you have “met” somebody on the date site, first of all try to check several things in the beginning of your relationship, and do not be so naive. Let’s take girls on the dating site who trying to swindle out money from men as an example.
Usually:
1) She (scammer) contacts you first on a dating service and talks a lot about honesty. There is an info in profile that a man's age, race or income doesn't matter to Her. Mostly there is a 20 (or more) year age-difference, because chances of being scammed only increase with the age difference.

2) She is very polite, kind no matter what you say, looks like it’s “love at a first sight”, which is very attractive for hopeless and naive people. She always asks you to contact Her via her private e-mail which is changed from time to time during correspondence.

3) You mention discrepancy in countries (if mention - it’s good, because usually “love is blinded”), for example in Her profile there is info that She is from the USA, United Kingdom or any other country, while in Her letter She says She is from Russia, Nigeria etc.

4) Finally the most attractive part of swindle - photos. On the pictures She is too beautiful to be true. Generally scammers use photos of professional models. Some of them are more cunning, they steal photos of beautiful women from the Internet. You can actually check it using google. There is a top menu on the left side/Pictures. You click on it and on the search field you see the sign “camera”, click on it and upload picture of beautiful women. If you see that this picture is presented on many other different websites, forget about this online “friend”. More clever scammers can use photos not from the Net, but it’s rare case when these photos are used on 1 website only.

Choosing a Credit Card

All of us know that there is a huge and severe competition today among credit card companies. For some reasons it’s good - you can choose what is more suitable for you, on the other hand it’s bad because you face with problems of choosing “which one is better?” and it can totally confuse you. Do not to be confused in this article we will discuss how to compare and choose a credit card.

If you have a good credit history, you have a chance to pick any card from many different companies (banks). There are different types of credit cards. It can be credit cards that give you cash back, gift cards or bonuses (it also calls frequent-flier miles). The best way of getting a good card is picking the card which excellent matches your spending style and your needs.

As there are different types of credit cards, first of all you need to choose one among standard credit cards, premium, charged credit cards, business credit cards, student or reward cards and etc. Then choose the best possible rate, it depends how are you going to use the credit card. If you usually pay your balance in full each month then charge card is excellent for you. If you are going to use card for balance transfers, then you should get a card with a low interest rate on balance transfers. For frequent travelers, for instance, a card that provides frequent-flier miles or points is the best kind. In this case it’s good to look for a card that pays a high percentage on travel expenses such as travel airline tickets or hotel rooms.

Be acquainted with the annual percentage rate (APR). Most credit cards have a different APR for balance transfers, purchases or for cash withdrawal. Make sure you know the APR for each. Also you need to know all fees which will be charged at ATMs, stores or when you carry out belated card payment.

Contactless payments

Credit card department of Barclays bank (England) - Barclaycard has introduced stickers for contactless payments, it calls PayTag for Visa card owners. Small device in size like third part of regular plastic card, can be attached to the cell phone, which as opposed to money is always in your pocket. According to the reason of usage convenience, recently it has become one the most popular topic for discussion and one of the most important innovation in e-commerce.

Enough simply to take sticker to the special terminal at the cash desk and necessary amount of money will be write off from the account of Visa card holder, which is attached to the payment sticker. Providing special terminals to the outlets all over Great Britain goes with breakneck speed. What about PIN code? If the purchase is no more that 15 pounds, entering the PIN code will not be necessary, but this limit is going to be increased. Currently Barclays bank spreads restricted quantity of contactless payments, but plans are quite serious - during next year to substitute payment stickers for plastic cards for most part of Barclays bank clients.

Small device PayTag can turn any mobile into a contactless way to pay, so there is no need to fumble with cash, find your card, or enter a PIN. As it is small sticker on your mobile phone, it is right there with you when you need. By the way, sticker could be stuck to anything, not only mobile phones.

The question is about safety of your funds. How the client would contact Barclays to inform about lost or stolen PayTag. To this question they’ve provided with encouraged answer, that if client loses PayTag or it gets stolen, client will be protected against fraudulent activity, in just the same way as his/her Barclay's card.