I typed the phrase “enter to win an iPad” into Google and 23.7 million results came up. Yes, Apple’s “magical” device, as Steve Jobs put it, has captured a lot of attention and it’s not even officially on the market yet (that happens a week from today). But some of that attention is unwelcome.
Consumers bombarded with e-mails or display ads on Web sites inviting them to “enter to win an iPad” need to be on their guard, says Aryeh Goretsky, distinguished researcher at security software company ESET. Unscrupulous characters on the Internet may be using the popular tablet computer as bait for identity theft.
Goretsky offers a lot of good advice here on how to distinguish the legitimate giveway offers from the not so legitimate ones:
- Check the company’s reputation with the Better Business Bureau, as well as seeing what people have to say about them online by searching on their company name and web site address in addition to keywords like fraud and scam in your favorite search engines.
- Find out what sort of promotion it really is. There is a great amount of different between bona-fide free giveaways, contests, lotteries, promotional offers and simply clever advertisements. Consider whether or not you would sign up for a service or a subscription if an Apple iPad were not being offered.
- Find out what the minimum information is that they require from you in order to participate in the offer. It is expected that your name and email address are required, and while this may seem like fairly innocuous information to give out, it is all a spammer needs to begin sending you spam and selling your contact information to other spammers.
- A shipping address may be requested as well (and, presumably, if you win the giveaway). Consider that, at the very least, you may be setting yourself up to receive a lot of unwanted postal junk mail.
- If other information is requested, such as a telephone number, birth date, driver’s license, social security or tax identification number, you could be dealing with identity thieves. Requests for financial services information such as bank accounts or credit card numbers, or personal information which could be used to guess passwords for these services should set off alarms that you are not dealing with a legitimate entity.
- If you are asked to download or run a program on your computer as part of the promotion, you should be suspicious. A truly free offer is not going to require you to view popups or track your Internet usage. The proper terms for such programs are adware and spyware.
- Read the fine print. You may find that requirements include the purchase of goods or services, or the installation of “behavioral monitoring” software or watching of “context-sensitive advertisements.”
Lastly, Goretsky advises consumers to ask of the marketing firm, “what’s in it for them?” If they ask for your e-mail or home address, they could be setting you up to receive spam or junk mail from all sorts of other companies with which they’re associated. And if they ask for even more personal information such as credit card numbers, date-of-birth or Social Security number, you could become the victim of identity theft that will be far more costly to you than that “free” iPad.
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