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Scams - The Word with
Heather René Dunaway

Written by: Heather Dunaway
August 2024

Recently, I have been getting a lot of “McAfee” or “virus protection” scam emails and I have to admit… They are getting trickier to spot. Even going as far as masking their email address to look legit with a @mcafee.com at the end. 

 

In this day and age, where technology is at is peak and security is at its weak(est), you have to be extra cautious online for your own protection. 

 

Scammers will find your info online in a bunch of places. Just google yourself. Your name, email and phone number all pop up. They can pay to have your info. Some businesses (like those pesky rewards programs) might even sell your info to third parties. EW, right? How rude. 

 

They can even pull your info off your own website. If you are an artist, you want to have a way for potential buyers to contact you, right?

Artists seem to be an easy target for scammers. We are so excited to have someone reach out about a sale or to say they like our art and want to book us. Though spotting these scam emails has gotten trickier, they still have pretty easy to spot tricks.

 

  • If the email is a name with digits after it, example: [email protected], it’s probably a scammer.

 

  • If they are offering to send you a paper check – scammer.

 

  • If they want you to click a link – scammer.

 

  • If they want to send you money but need your bank info – scammer.

 

  • If their sentences have grammar, or structure issues – scammer.

 

  • If the email doesn’t match the name in the email body – scammer.

 

  • If they start off the email referring back to a “conversation” you had with them previously, but this is the first email you have ever had with them – scammer.

 

  • If you get a social media message or comment from some rando and their profile was just created- scammer.

 

  • If you get a message or comment from a person or an account claiming to be Facebook/meta – scammer.

 

  • If you see a heart-string-pulling post, like a lost kid or an injured dog, and its comments are turned off – scammer.

 

If you get an email and that little red-flag goes off for any reason in you mind. Any doubt that its a real person, google their email or the message. There is a 9/10 chance someone made a reddit post about it. They never just email one person. It’s always a mass email.

 

Or just simply don’t respond.

 

And NEVER EVER EVER click on anylinks.

 

We are having a Creative Conversation in January 2025 with local artist Aort Reed, who sees these regularly. You can sign-up here: https://bit.ly/CreativeConversationsSignUp

 

That’s the word,

 

Don’t get scammed, y’all.

 

-Heather