Scammers are using phones emails and other means to get hold of our money. Gary Crawford has a report on how to scam the scammers.

PARTICIPANTS: Gary Crawford. Barbara Stockebrand, Kansas State University Extension educator. Classic comedian, W.C. Fields.

Transcript

Classy comedian WC Fields once said, "You can't cheat an honest man."

But he was wrong on that one.

Thousands of honest Americans are cheated every month just from telemarketing scams or scams coming through emails or texts or fraudulent websites.

Fraud reports and complaints are usually handled at the federal level by the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, and indeed... 65 percent of the complaints to the FTC relate to telemarketing calls.

But Kansas State University Extension expert Barbara Stockbrand says scammers are increasingly using digital means as well.

All kinds of approaches and pitches, all designed to either get our personal financial information or more commonly, just to get us to send them money.

The types of scams are endless.

Here's just a couple of examples.

Someone calling from Social Security needing your personal information or confirming that.

Or the IRS with threats of arrest, possibly, if outstanding taxes aren't paid.

Or the call or email can be from a fake charity asking us to contribute immediately.

Immediately!

Because the situation is desperate.

That uses our charitable side to get at our money.

But Barbara says one way to spot a scam is that they want money now.

So Barbara says it may seem rude, but either, one...

Don't answer calls from unfamiliar numbers.

Or two, if you do answer and you smell a rat...

Just say, "No thanks," and hang up.

Whatever you do...

Never send money.

Or give out your personal information.

Now, online scams are quite sophisticated, especially those from supposed charities.

They create organization names that sound similar to an official legitimate charity trying to catch their targets off guard.

So we may get unsolicited emails, not just from fake charities, but other fake entities, and there are ways to not get taken in by those.

First...

If they are wanting a reply to an email, look to see if the reply is returned to a personal email address, such as Gmail or Hotmail.

If so, it's probably a scam.

Look for bad grammar and misspellings in the email.

That's a sign the email's not coming from this country and is likely a scam.

Also...

Sometimes in an email, there's a link included for you to click on, requesting you to go to their site.

So use your cursor to hover over the link, but don't click on the link.

The emails also may have attachments they want you to open up.

Don't click on those either, because those can install software where the scammer may be able to gain access to your computer, and then maybe through your computer to other possible computers of friends and family.

Just leave that email alone, even if it looks like it comes from a legitimate business or charity, because scammers will copy or steal logos and such from legitimate entities to lure us in.

And of course, remember, whatever the deal is, there's one final, familiar piece of advice for just about any deal, anywhere.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Yes, because those scammers follow another saying from W.C. Fields.

Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.

That's right.

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