Don't talk to me. I mean that. OK, so let me qualify that statement. I am truly amazed by the number of people who I can call on the telephone, that have no idea who I am or why I would be calling and then I introduce myself and then I ask them a personal question....and they tell me! You don't know who I am. I could tell you I am just about anyone and if I say it with conviction and I sound authentic and official and I even happen to know a few details about your situation or your family or your car and suddenly you believe I am who I say I am without ever having seen my face, my uniform or my identification. If you get a call from me and you have no knowledge of why I would suddenly call you (i.e. your car didn't in fact get broken into overnight) then ask for a number or ask what office I work out of and then look that up in the phone book and call the office and ask for me. They will verify that I am who I say I am. Then and only then do you give out information that you don't particularly want just any stranger to have. Now obviously if you were a victim of crime then you would expect a call from the police; kinda goes with the territory and chances are, we have already met in your driveway in the middle of the night when you caught the ne'r-do-wells going through your car.

I bring this up because I recently came across a complaint containing a twist on a fraud that has been around for awhile. This is the Western Union scam where someone's grandson, husband, favorite niece..... whatever, got into trouble and needs you to send them bail money, tow truck money, money to pay their hotel bill....whatever and can you send it via Western Union. A lot of folks are on to this scam but this is how the latest one rolled out. A lady gets a call from her grandson's lawyer, let's call him Jim Smith. Jim Smith is representing this lady's grandson who is in jail in Mexico where he went on holidays and needs $2000 in bail money. This lady does not know Jim Smith but he does indeed sound official and he knows the grandson by name, even knows his birthday, and he provides his law firms name and low and behold, they look up the law firm and indeed there is Jim Smith working for Bilk You, Bilk Me and Smith Law Corporation. So, this wonderful lady, wanting to help her grandson out, sends off the $2000 to Jim Smith. A male type person attends at the Western Union in Acapulco with identification that says his name is Jim Smith and collects the cash, never to be seen again.

All the while the grandson is still sipping his Pina Coladas on the beach in Mexico where he told all his friends on facebook he was going to with the birthday money he got from his dear grandmother that goes by the name of.... You get it.

Needless to say the actual Jim Smith who works for the bonafide law corporation has no idea that this took place or that his identity was assumed to make this transaction happen. We post information about ourselves on facebook, we tweet and text, blog and journal and communicate personal information about ourselves in ways no one imagined a short time ago.

We forget that the world can access our information if it is public and hack it if it is private. We take pictures with cell phones and forget that they are meta tagged and geo tagged so someone with just a little bit of know how can tell where the picture was taken. Think about that when you post a pic of your new ride in front of your house and tell the world you are heading out across the country on a road trip (leaving your house empty with it's geographical location on a yahoo map on someone's software) because you posted your pictures from your GPS enabled phone.

Then there is another one that is just starting to hit our area. It started in the UK and Australia and now is working its way to us from Victoria. You will get a call from someone who knows your name and address and tells you that they represent Microsoft. They will then go on to tell you that your computer will become unstable unless you go to a website that they give you and download a "fix". They then ask you to pay a fee for a subscription to a preventative maintenance service. So you will pay a fee to allow them access to your computer. When you download the fix, you just became a victim because they now have remote access to your computer and complete access to everyone in it including banking information. It's not a fix, it's a scam and you just paid for the privilege of being scammed. DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS.

If someone represents someone you know and pulls details about you out of a hat then ask yourself how that person knows that information. I don't care if that person purports to be the police, your banker, VISA, Revenue Canada or your grandson's lawyer. Call the company, look them up online, call their office. Get a number, verify who they are. If they want money or personal information then DON'T TALK TO THEM until you know exactly who they are and how they know information about you and you have verified that they are safe to release information about yourself or your friends or you family or your computer.

We tell children not to talk to strangers but we cease to take that advice ourselves. In this day and age of instant and detailed communication, it takes very little time to amass enough details about your life, your friends, your ride, your pets, your workplace from what you say on facebook, My Space, or any of the plethora of social networking sites to provide me with enough information when I call you to make you think I am whomever I want you to think I am. How about the contests you enter and the trade show. Do you know where you name and address information goes? Information about you can come from an number of sources. DON'T TALK TO ME.....unless you know me.

Make sure you take the steps to protect yourself and your information so that you don't become a victim of some faceless person picking up your money because your best friend got into some financial pickle of one kind or another who conveniently cannot be reached because they are in a cell, a hospital bed, lost their memory,....whatever. There are as many "stories" as there is imagination to make them up. Don't fall for these kinds of scams that take many different forms. Don't think, hey I don't have a grandson, this won't happen to me. We all have someone in our lives that we care about and we talk about because we are proud of them or mad at them or love them, we like to share the details, trial and tribulations of our lives and post photos to go with them and most of the time that information is innocently shared by family and friends but look real hard into the shadows of the cyberworld and watch out for the predators. Don't expose your soft underbelly by posting information that those predators can take advantage of to rip you off! So...the next time the phone rings....think about this article and verify the caller.