Each year millions of us are caught in the nets of people who are experts at getting us to reveal personal information or to send money. Gary Crawford has more. 

PARTICIPANTS: Gary Crawford and Barbara Stockebrand with Kansas State University Extension.

Transcript

Do you like fishing?

Well now take down your fishing pole and meet me at the fishing hole.

Ah, but we're not talking about fishing F-I-S-H-I-N-G.

Today a more sinister fishing activity, fishing spelled P-H-I-S-H-I-N-G.

And while it's spelled differently than the type of fishing we might do in our lake or our local pond, it's a similar tactic.

The goal is to catch someone off guard and get the information or the resources that they want.

Lure them with a little bait.

That's Kansas State University Extension Educator Barbara Stockerbrand.

And yes, in this case, the people doing the fishing are scammers.

We are the fish.

The fishing hole, usually our email or text on our computer or phone, sometimes phone calls and even our regular mail.

Those scammers are out to lure us fish into giving them our personal information or straight out our money under totally false pretenses.

They do this using all sorts of social engineering tactics that are designed to get us to do what they want.

To tell them some personal information or maybe click on an email attachment or click on a link to a website.

The techniques vary on this.

For example, one hook, one bait that the scammers use to lure us fish is sending a text or email or a phone call saying this is your lucky day.

You've won money, a big trip.

Oh boy.

But there's always a catch.

There are fees involved that have to be paid in order to collect your prize.

If they call, they act very excited for you and they want to make sure you get what's coming to you.

And it's very, very exciting.

And after all.

The amount of money they are offering may be very large.

So small fees seem kind of trivial in comparison to maybe what they are promising you.

And part of the technique here is to tell you.

It's urgent that you act quickly to claim your prize so you don't have time to think about it.

So that appeals to our possible hunger for money and prizes.

And in the excitement, we send money or give them our credit or debit card number or most times they want us to wire the money.

Quick transaction.

It's likely not traceable and the money is gone.

These crooks sometimes are aware of our particular emotional weak spots.

For example, having lost a loved one and being named as a survivor in an obituary or maybe a post on social media for a loss of a loved one.

That's something the scammer can exploit or and I've gotten these calls where they say I'm about to be arrested for drug smuggling and I should call the FBI or some agency to clear up the matter.

That's scary.

And Barbara says that's what the scammers are counting on because they know when people get scared, they often don't think straight.

Or another technique the scammers use is to play on people's compassion and pretend to be a charity that needs our help right away.

Now, Barbara says whatever we do, don't give out personal information to people or organizations that we don't know.

Don't send money spur of the moment.

And next time, more scams, more advice on how to handle them.

This is Gary Crawford reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.