5 Free Money Scams to Avoid

5 Free Money Scams to Avoid 5 Free Money Scams to Avoid 5 Free Money Scams to AvoidRepeat after us: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.Updated: May 29, 2018You might not realize it, but theres probably not a day that goes by where you dont see a scammer at work. Between the late night infomercials peddling books that claim to have 100 Secrets Banks Dont Want You to Know, online ads pushing Free Government Money Programs, and all those spammy emails from your local Nigerian prince, your world is filled with people trying to squeeze money out of you any way they can.Why are money scams so common? Sadly, its because they actually work on a lot of people. After all, who doesnt want to pad their wallet a little bit? The worst part about this new culture of scamming is that the people getting ripped off are often people who really need help. People with bad credit and meager incomes, who cant get access to traditional lines of credit like credit cards or bank loans, are often sucked in by free money! scams peddled by criminals loo king to make a buck off their backs.But you dont have to be a victim. When you know what youre looking for, its easy to spot a scam and shut it down in its tracks. Here are the five most common money scams (and how to avoid falling for them).1. Free government money grantsOpen up your spam folder and youre likely to find several emails promising to send you scores of Uncle Sams cashâ€"with no catch. Typically, these emails will sound something like this:Hey there Bob! The government is rewarding citizens who pay their taxes on time with grants of up to $10,000 per person! Because youre such an upstanding American, you qualify for a grant of $8,589.40! Send us your checking account information and we will deposit that amount RIGHT AWAY! No strings attached!Can you guess what happens if you send them your bank account info? Instead of getting a bunch of magical government dollars deposited into your checking account, youll probably find it cleared of funds entirely. Oops!While there a re legitimate government grants out there, theyre for businesses, not for random people who pay their taxes on time. According to the FTC, there are several steps you can take to avoid getting taken by one of these fake government grant programs:Don’t give out your bank account information to anyone you don’t know.  Scammers pressure people to divulge their bank account information so that they can steal the money in the account. Always keep your bank account information confidential. Don’t share it unless you are familiar with the company and know why the information is necessary.Don’t pay any money for a “free” government grant.  If you have to pay money to claim a “free” government grant, it isn’t really free. A real government agency won’t ask you to pay a processing fee for a grant that you have already been awarded â€" or to pay for a list of grant-making institutions. The names of agencies and foundations that award grants are available for free at any pub lic library or on the Internet. The only official access point for all federal grant-making agencies is  www.grants.gov.Look-alikes aren’t the real thing.  Just because the caller says he’s from the “Federal Grants Administration” doesn’t mean that he is. There is no such government agency. Take a moment to check the blue pages in your telephone directory to bear out your hunch â€" or not.Phone numbers can deceive.  Some con artists use Internet technology to disguise their area code in caller ID systems. Although it may look like they’re calling from Washington, DC, they could be calling from anywhere in the world.Take control of the calls you receive.  If you want to reduce the number of telemarketing calls you receive, place your telephone number on the National Do Not Call Registry. To register online, visit  donotcall.gov. To register by phone, call 1-888-382-1222 (TTY: 1-866-290-4236) from the phone number you wish to register.File a complaint with the FTC.  If you think you may have been a victim of a government grant scam,  file a complaint with the FTC online, or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.2. Foreign lottery winnerCongratulations! You just won the North Korean State Lottery!Next time a number or email address you dont know reaches out to tell you that youve just become a millionaire in some distant land, stop to think for a minute. First, do you actually remember buying a lottery ticket in Pyongyang? Have you actually even BEEN to Pyongyang? Does North Korea even HAVE a lottery? If they do, is it legal for a foreigner to enter that lottery? Unless youve been galavanting around the Hermit Kingdom buying scratch tickets, the answer to all of these questions is going to be a big, fat, NO.In fact, according to the FTC, its actually illegal for an American citizen to play a foreign lottery. Additionally, buying one so-called foreign lottery ticket from these scammers puts you at risk for getting more and more solicitations from similar scams. In reality, notices like these are from fraudsters looking to get access to your bank account or credit card information. Dont let make it easy for them to steal from you.3. Work at home job scamsWho wouldnt want to work from home every day? You can make calls in your pajamas, have lunch with your cat, and set your workday around your TV-watching schedule. LIVING. THE. DREAM.If you spend any time on the internet, youll see constant ads for jobs you can do at home. Area Mom Makes $200,000 From Home! they claim. Sadly, that Area Mom isnt making $200,000 from home. She cant, because she doesnt actually exist.Click on these ads and theyll send you to spammy-looking sites for jobs like mystery shoppingâ€"being paid to spy on mall employeesâ€"or reshipping, which involves receiving and re-mailing packages bought using stolen credit card numbers and/or packages containing counterfeit postal money orders. Neither of these things will make you rich, and the latter could get you arrested.Additionally, some of these work at home scams might send you to multi-level marketing companies, or pyramid schemes, that require you to spend money in order to become a distributor of their products. Because over 99 percent of people who start working for MLMs actually lose money, youre not likely to start raking in $400,00 every month.4. Binary options robotsBinary Options sites claim to exist to help you make investments, but dont be fooled. In fact, these sites are nothing more than good, old-fashioned gambling sites.According to  Forbes:A Google search for binary option Web sites produced 870,000 hits with promotions like earn up to 75 per cent every hour and 81 per cent profit in one hour or less, trade all maj or markets, You can buy these  options, which are also known as all-or-nothing options, digital options, or Fixed Return Options (FROs), on stocks, commodities, indexes, foreign exchange, and other derivatives.In fact, you can place a bet (which is what it really amounts to) on just about anything that is publicly traded, depending on which Web site you use (some offer a wider range of choices than others). Some sites provide free guides to binary option trading to get you started.Basically, Binary Options Robots or Binary Trading Options is sophisticated-sounding terminology for what is essentially just rolling the dice.  Imagine a guy asking you to pay him $200 bucks just to walk you into a casino. Thats what these trading schemes are. Thats not even a gamble, thats just a rip-off.5. Nigerian Prince scamNigerian Prince Scams are the Abbey Road of email scams. Oldies, but goodies.Heres a tip, if you get an email from a Nigerian Prince who asks for your help in retrieving his frozen assets and who claims he will offer you a million-dollar cut in return, delete it. Just delete it. That might seem obvious to you, but someone is paying these con artists. In 2012, the FBI calculated these scams cost victims close to $60 million!Learn more about protecting yourself and your bank account in Don’t Let a Phishing Scam Lead to Bad Credit!BONUS SCAM: Predatory payday loansIf youve been close to falling for a free money scam, the odds are good youre in a financial bind. Maybe you tried to get a loan, but couldnt land one with your not-so-great credit. Dont let yourself be fooled by loan offers that are 50 percent explanation points, promising  Fast Cash Now!!!!!!!!!!!!! or No Credit Check Required!!!!!!!!!!!Much like offers of free cash, these no credit check loans always come with strings attached.These kinds of loan offers are more commonly referred to as predatory lending, and they most often take the form of a payday loan or  title loan. Predatory bad credit loans  come with lots of hidden fees and interest rates so high that you could use them for BASE jumpingâ€"between 300-500 percent APR or even higher.Free cash might not be real, but predatory loans are very real. And they are very dangerous.To learn more about protecting yourself against predatory online fraudsters, check out these related pages and articles form OppLoans:Yes, Its a Bad Idea to Hire a Hacker to Fix Your Credit6 Costly Holiday Scams and How to Avoid ThemYour Guide to Cash Advance ScamsHow Scammers Are Hacking Emotions to Target Elderly ConsumersHave you been taken in by one of these five common scams? We want to hear about your experience!  Email us  or let us know on  Facebook  and  Twitter.