You may think that your business will never suffer a great loss because of a scam, but many businesses do every year. One business reported in May that they almost lost thousands of dollars to a phishing scam that was sent to everyone in the office. Their malware protection managed to find the virus before it stole tons of raw data, including addresses and credit card numbers of countless clients. Another company, just last month, was not so lucky. Two men placed a program designed to spy on the activity of a computer on its sales systems. The men then proceeded to wait several months, and once over 150,000 credit card numbers were taken from several point of sale systems, the men sold them on a website for an unknown amount of money.

Scammers often target small businesses, especially ones that have been around for less than a year, for practice. Small businesses are the number one most targeted type of business by scammers. In addition to their lack of computer security, they often don't have a team that’s well-versed in the ways of the internet, and they definitely don’t have a team that is kept up-to-date on all of the happenings of virus attacks online like many big businesses do. Here are two scams you can avoid by simply making sure you know your information before clicking or responding to anything.

Phishing Scams

Phishing scams are getting powerful and much cleverer. Sometimes they even appear to be from an e-mail that came from a legitimate website. In reality, these e-mails are designed to implant malware on a computer that then steals data and transmits it to the hacker on the other end. Much of the time, this information is not just data on the company, but data on the company’s clients. A single malware virus can transmit thousands of bytes of data a second.

Don’t Do It: The biggest hint that an e-mail isn’t legitimate is spelling or grammar mistakes. Sometimes other inconsistencies occur, such as the lack of an unsubscribe button or information at the bottom of the e-mail about the company.  Make sure your browser is up-to-date; many broswers are equipped to deal with fake e-mails and have powerful anti-phishing software installed.

TTY Scams

A TTY scam is an excellent way to get an employee on a scammer’s side. The caller on the other end transmits messages through an operator via text, and the operator then speaks to the employee on the other end. This calls are untraceable after the fact, and much of the time, no one can tell who the person on the other end is. The scammer proceeds to ask for large ticket items over the phone, pays with a credit card that isn’t theirs, and then requests a check for the shipping fees because they made such a large purchase.

Don’t Do It: Ask the operator to verify the three digit verification code on the back of the card along with the customer service number on the back. Tell the potential buyer that you are going to call the credit card company to verify the credit card, and then call them back if they leave a name and phone number with you. This will stop this scam in its tracks.