The random Email Survey Scam

The random email survey scam is a new scam that has just been active for the past few months. This scam is totally different from the normal survey scams out there. Instead of the normal survey scam, where you stumble upon their website, and they ask you to pay them a fee to join and make lots of money, this new scam is uses a much more direct approach, as well as trying to make people believe that they are a reputable company.

This is how the random email survey scam works. Those scammers will send you an email, stating that you have been selected from their database to participate in their short survey. In most cases, it had only 6 to 10 questions in the survey. They claim that once you filled out their short survey, they will pay you a nice fee for your effort, somewhere around $50 to 120.

If you have done those legit surveys before, you would know that the real legit surveys never pay anywhere near that much, so there is already something fishy about it. So this is what happens next, you click on the link in the email and you are brought to a website that has a few simple questions, and a simple and clean looking form.

In the form below the questions, they will ask for your name, your phone number, address, and even some promotional materials like signing up for a newsletter, to make it seem authentic. And right below that form is another form, this one for your credit card.

They will require your credit card number, your CCV, and even your PIN code. Fairly to say, for most of us experienced Internet users, we would be very sceptic by now and we wouldn't even think of giving others our credit card information. The problem is that apart from this one element, almost everything else about it seems authentic.

In many cases, those scammers try to make themselves look like a legitimate company. They will use the colors and logos of that company to try to fool people. There have been cases of those scammers making themselves appear as McDonalds, Nike and even Citibank.

While it may look tempting, please remember that all those large companies would never resort to such methods. They would never simply send an email to someone and ask for their credit card. While most of us experienced Internet users will be able tell that this is a scam, there are many Internet newbies that do not.

The random email survey scam is still fairly new, so do expect to see and hear more about it in then near future. Please remember to do our part and help inform everyone about this scam so that it will not claim any more victims.

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