DANGER! Email Gift Card Scams!

Someone very close to us (Dave knows this person VERY well but doesn't want to give out the name) received an email from the CEO of their company asking them to purchase gift cards from a particular store.

This person went into immediate action, bought the gift cards, then emailed the information back to the CEO.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the CEO that did the asking! It was someone posing as the CEO, and they did an amazing job of impersonating the CEO, as the email exchange really seemed like it was from the CEO.

What happens with this scam is we can become so trained that when someone with authority over us asks us to jump, we say "how high" without questioning where we are jumping!

Here are some ways to prevent this from happening to you:
1. When there is money involved in any way, look at the email headers; you may see the name, but the email address will be wrong
- it could be the domain of the email is slightly off. For example, it could be from dave@prowebsitecreator.com instead of prowebsitecreatorS.com, which is us. Or an "o" could be changed to an "e" as in prowebsitecreaters.com.

2. Don't look at these emails exclusively on your phone as it can easily hide the actual email address and only show the name; this is what happened to the person above.

3. Call the person asking at a phone number YOU already have, and not the one on the email.

4. Forward the email to us and we'll help you figure it out.

5. Finally, ask yourself if this passes the "sniff" test. If it seems like there's something foul in the air, there probably is!