Here are 5 things you should know.
1. Don’t buy TurboTax, HR Block, etc. tax software from the company’s websites. They are almost always significantly cheaper on third-party sites, such as Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target.
For example, TurboTax Premier is listed for $90 on their official website, but it’s only $54.99 on Amazon. Don’t fall for those emails claiming $10 off and the ‘guaranteed best price of the year.’
There are free options for basic returns, but not everyone qualifies for them.
FreeTaxUSA – Free Federal, $15 State (Deluxe Option Available)
IRS (I know. I know. It’s scary to trust ‘the man’, but this is legit. Under 73k is free.
2. Buying a used car from a rental car company or a shady dealership could likely have a GPS tracker installed.
An experience shared: “I work at one of the biggest National used car dealerships in the US as a mechanic refurbishing used cars. Often enough I receive work orders to remove aftermarket GPS trackers and those vehicles disproportionately have been bought from rental car companies or local independent dealerships.
The GPS trackers only require a switched 12V source for power and use an internal battery for when the vehicle is turned off.
Most common locations, in my experience, are under the driver side dash around the steering column or OBD connector and behind the driverside kick panel, where you usually rest your left foot, it is also common to be installed in the engine bay in the vicinity of the battery.”
3. It’s really easy to spot a phishing email.
If you are unsure of a potential Spam, phishing, or hazardous email collecting details. Take these three steps.
Step one; A lot of phishing emails recently are great on the initial open. ‘The first look’ shall we say. Take your time to read through it and check the information. If the email asks for your details and/or needs to provide any info to the email address. It’s probably a scam. Red flag number one. Companies do not want your details, especially financial details over emails.
Step two; Check the email address. From the sender. What does it read after the @ sign? This is a fantastic indicator to see who is behind the email. If it’s something ludicrous like @eusehshyewth1747 (just a random example) then it’s spam. If it’s a legitimate business like @bestbuy (or something similar) then it will be legit.
Step three; Check back on previous emails received from the potential company. Have you received emails like this before? Look at authentic emails from the company and cross-examine them with emails you know are real for sure.
This is not a 100% full-proof strategy by all means. It’s a simple guide to help you pull out the bad emails collecting details and reporting them.
Optional Step; If you hate the people behind these phishing emails. Then forward them to the company they are pretending to be from. Most companies now (big ones) have a technical team that deals with these emails and would love to hear from you! As they are also being hurt by these fraudsters pretending to be them.
4. The US Postal Service offers a service called Informed Delivery that will send you a daily email with a digital preview of all your letter-sized mail. Users receive emails containing grayscale images of the exterior, address side of postal mail that is arriving soon.
This is especially useful if you are expecting an important piece of mail. Or if you have a mailbox and want to decide whether to go to the mailbox in the cold. Informed Delivery allows everyone to view what is coming to your mailbox. You can also manage packages scheduled to arrive soon.
Here is the link to sign up: https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action
5. Mail.com deletes your email address permanently after 6 months of inactivity.
If you have a spare email address you use for junk mail, random accounts that might spam, or pretty much any mail.com account that you don’t open regularly if your email is inactive and unused for 6 months, it gets auto-deleted, and apparently, you can’t even recover it.
Source: Mail.com themselves
